From the Classroom to the Corporate World: thanks, FTI Delta!

I graduated from the American University of Beirut with a degree in Psychology and a minor in Business. Towards the end of my bachelor, when it came down to choosing what I wanted to pursue, I realized that I wanted to pursue a career in consulting. I also wanted to equip myself with the right toolkit to become a top-notch consultant, and for that, I pursued a master in Big Data at IE University and started preparing for case interviews. I applied to several consulting firms, but FTI Delta stood out to me from the beginning. I was worried that since my background was not in business management or engineering, I would not be able to enter the consulting world. It was not the case.

FTI Delta is looking for ambition, excellent critical thinking skills demonstrated in the interviews, and a desire to grow. The way each member of the HR team and every interviewer interacted with me brought up a sense of what FTI Delta was all about from the very start.

I knew that Delta was not only going to allow me to excel professionally but that it was also going to be a place I considered a safe space if I decided to join. And so, it did!

I completed my master and, ten days later, I was in Dubai starting my internship. Ten days after that, I was in Riyadh! I am sure not many interns working in similar firms get to experience going to a client site on their first project.

My induction into the TMT world

Delta staffed me not just on any project; they put me on one of the fastest-growing MVNOs in the region. Safe to say that I had no idea what an MVNO was, and for those who do not know but want to join us, look into it. It is a good talking point in interviews.

Six months, nighty flights, and 500,000 Marriott Bonvoy points later, I am still on that project, and I have worked on three separate streams for it with three different teams, all under the supervision of Francesc.

Initially, I was part of a team who collaborated very closely with the commercial team of the MVNO. From project and product management to revamping the commercial strategy, this stream allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of the commercial side of the telco. The second stream I was then part of allowed me to understand the technical side of a telco. I collaborated with the User Acceptance Testing team of the MVNO, which oversees that every product about to be released is behaving as expected technically, and from the future customer’s perspective. And finally, throughout the third stream, I worked on a financial assessment that evaluated the benefits and risks of deploying networks in certain areas of Saudi Arabia.

Fran made it a point during my internship to expose me to different departments in the MVNO, whether technical or commercial. The three streams allowed me to gain a 360-degree view of how an MVNO works and provided me with the skill set that a consultant needs to succeed in this field.

I quickly learned the importance of properly structuring a storyline, in-depth research and analysis, and financial modeling.

A collaborative culture leads to unmatching moments

Fran, and the rest of the team, embody the collaborative culture that Delta, from the top management to the newest entrants, preaches.  Three months into my internship, I received a full-time offer, which I accepted without even reading (Ilenia, this is a joke, I read every word, I promise).

Two of the most memorable weeks at Delta were: the week of the New Entrants Training (NET) and the Junior Level Training Offsite (JLO). FTI Delta and FTI Consulting employees gathered in Dubai from all over the world for a fun – yet intense – training. I got to meet colleagues from countries I had never been to and watched keynote speeches from experts in the TMT field.

Thank you, FTI Delta.

I could not have asked for a better kickstart into the corporate world.

Nour Darwiche Hammoud