A Day in the Life of Clara

8:00 AM

I wake up, take a quick shower, dress up casually since I have no client meeting today, and jump on the tube. The London office operates a flexible hybrid work model, but I like coming in at least 3 times a week. I have a 20 min. commute to the office during which I usually read a book or listen to a podcast.

9:00 AM

I usually grab a quick breakfast and take advantage of the quiet morning at the office to organize my day. I read through my research notes and assess potential gaps I might find, I’ll set some time aside later today to dig deeper into specific markets.

10:00 AM

I jump on a bi-weekly team check-in. Since the team is split between Paris and London, we do most of our meetings on Teams. I’m currently working on a project for a large UK defense player and have been spending most of my time doing research this week. It’s a great opportunity to share my findings with the team and get a path forward from the project manager.

11:00 AM

I have a primary call with a former army officer as I am trying to get insights on the land turret market in Europe. The guy was very chatty, and the call ended up taking more time than I had planned, but I got interesting insights which I will share on the Teams page as it might be useful for other analysts on the project.

12:00 PM

It’s lunch time! My favorite place around the office is a Greek take-out place that prepares fresh food every day! We step outside to grab food and gather in the conference room to eat together. It’s a great time to get together, talk about our weekend plans, recent trips we’ve done or the best pubs in London.

1:00 PM

Back to work, I’m still missing some data on the French and Italian market. I look for people to reach out to on LinkedIn and shoot a couple of invites. They are usually very responsive, and I manage to schedule a few calls for later this week.

2:00 PM

I get a staffing e-mail for a new project. It’s not starting right away but I’m a very curious person and read through the statement of work I just received to know what the project is about. It’s a 2-week due diligence for a private equity firm, this one might be a little intense but really interesting!

2:45 PM

I jump on a call with my project manager (PM) who is in Paris to walk him through the Excel model I’ve been working on. He shows me a few tricks to gain in efficiency but seems satisfied with the progress I’ve made so far.

3:30 PM

Even if my research is not fully done, I’ve gathered a good amount of data and I can start working on slides. My goal is to have the first section done by tonight, to fully focus on the remaining sections during the rest of the week.

5:30 PM

I’m starving! Thankfully, our office manager always has a ton of healthy snacks stocked up for us. I grab a granola bar and a coffee with coworkers and get back to my slides.

7:15 PM

I’m done, I send a Teams message to my PM to tell him that I have slides ready to review.

7:30 PM

Workout time! I’m really into Barry’s Bootcamp’s intense workouts these days. I try hitting the gym at least 3 times a week, it clears my mind and helps me stay healthy, and it’s needed after 10+ hours seating at a desk (even though we have the coolest standing desks at the office).

9:00 PM

I’m home, I open my laptop to check if I have received some feedback from my PM but he’s been busy on another project and won’t have time to review my slides tonight. When project deadlines are coming up, I sometimes order a Deliveroo and get a little more work done.

I have a nice setup at home thanks to months of lockdown we’ve be through here, and I don’t like being in the office late, especially when the sun sets at 3:30 PM in December. This time, we’re still early-on in the project and I’ll pick-up where I left off tomorrow. My best friend calls me and asks me if I want to grab dinner in Shoreditch, and I head out!