I start my day with a run out to Castle Island - a popular morning activity in my neighborhood. There are several kiteboarders darting around the harbor, and I take in the view and feel energized for the day ahead.

After a quick workout, I queue up my daily news podcast, head out the door, and grab a bike from the Boston bike share station at the end of my block. It doesn’t take long for me to zip through Seaport to our office in the heart of downtown Boston. The easy commute gives me time to stop by Starbucks for my favorite weekly treat – nitro cold brew and a spinach & feta egg wrap. I head up to the office and enjoy my breakfast while skimming through the latest life sciences industry headlines from various newsletters that I receive each morning. After a few years at Clarion, it amazes me how many headlines relate to a drug, client, or disease area I’ve worked on.

I chat briefly with my manager to game plan for the day. We have a few overlapping client calls that we’ll have to divide and conquer. We’re currently working with a rapidly-scaling pharmaceutical company to build out their commercial operations organization and establish annual planning and brand governance processes across their four business units – a complex engagement involving multiple workstreams and a large Clarion team. This week, we are preparing for a series of strategic planning workshops, a major milestone in our project, that will be presented to the client’s C-Suite in a few months. After our discussion, I circle up with the rest of the Clarion team to align and divide up tasks, then shoot off some emails to various contacts at the client.

I switch gears, heading over to a nearby conference room for a recruiting team meeting. As an undergraduate recruiting lead, I am responsible for developing Clarion’s campus recruiting strategy and coordinating our outreach and interview process across schools. Today, we are discussing the approach for an upcoming interviewer training session. I’m looking forward to the session, where I and some fellow consultants will each walk new interviewers through our favorite case, noting common hang-ups and frequently asked questions and providing tips on facilitating a dynamic discussion. For me, giving interviews is one of the most rewarding parts of my involvement with recruiting. It’s a chance to share a small view into the work we do every day at Clarion. After the meeting, I have a much-needed hour for focused solo work at my desk. I start framing out the workshop agenda and facilitation materials.

When lunchtime rolls around, I head over to the food trucks at nearby Dewey Square. On a summer day like this, I’ll usually grab some coworkers and a picnic table during lunchtime, but today I decide on a gyro from Zo on the Go and head right back to the office. It’s the first Friday of the month, which means people are starting to congregate for our Firm Update. Once a month, the entire firm gets together to walk through overviews of our ongoing projects and hear about upcoming leads and proposals from the Leadership Team. A particularly intriguing proposal catches my attention, and I make a note to follow-up with the partner who is leading it to learn more.

I join my manager and the managing director leading our project for our weekly check-in call with the core client team. We each talk through key updates on the various ongoing workstreams and answer the client’s questions. The Vice President fills us in on some recent developments within the organization, then gives us new details on an upcoming data release that will impact the strategy for a key brand. We spend the rest of the meeting working through the approach and logistics for next week’s workshops, ending our call with a clear path forward. I head back to my desk and make a few quick edits to the draft workshop deck based on the conversation.

A senior associate from my team stops by my desk to talk through some questions on a set of slides she’s working on for one of the other business units. Then, it’s time for an afternoon coffee break! We grab a few more office mates and head across the street to our favorite local coffee shop.

Properly caffeinated, I dive into a busy afternoon of client calls. We are meeting with folks from Marketing, Market Research, Analytics, and Sales to corral the various data inputs we need to set up for the workshop. I really like that I’ve gotten to know so many people in different roles throughout the client organization over the course of our project. This stage of the process is especially exciting since each person we talk to has a different perspective on the most vital opportunities and threats for each of the brands in the coming year. Our next challenge will be to pull all of the data and insights into a situation analysis —a cohesive story for the business unit that will root the strategic planning process. We walk away from the series of meetings with lots of new food for thought.

I skip the bike in favor of a scenic walk home, stopping for a few groceries at the store by my apartment. I’ll take some time to clear out my inbox while dinner is cooking. After that, the rest of the evening is mine. At the end of each day, I enjoy knowing that the next day at Clarion could be entirely different. The variation keeps things fresh and means I’m always learning something new.