Gareth Hayes: Giving basic financial education to 4th graders and filling out brackets

In our Chicago office we work with an organization called "Operation Hope", which is a non-profit organization in the US. In the course of that relationship, last week we went to a public school in the Southwest side of Chicago to teach 4th graders - age 9 to 10 -the "Banking on our Future" basic banking course. We addressed questions such as "how and what to think about money", "how to use retail banks", and "how and why to save". We brought students form the University of Chicago, Northwestern University and the Kellogg School of Management as volunteers. We formed small groups of two to three people to support classes with about 40 students. We spent about three and a half hours with the class and taught about 200 students overall. We have been doing this once a year for two years now, and it would be great if we could do it more frequently in the future. The school principal (US-speak for headmaster) informed us before we started that many students are graduating from high school, much less 4th grade, without basic financial literacy (e.g., knowing how to fill in a check properly, using a credit card versus paying cash). We see the results of this in everything from the success of predatory lending and check-cashing companies in the US to, at least to a degree, the mortgage crisis. It was good to play even this very small part in fixing the problem.

In the US, recently two things have taken up the bulk of the press, one still being the Republican primaries. Normally by this point we would already have a clear winner. This year, we don't. It still appears that Mitt Romney will be the candidate, but Rick Santorum is actually winning more of the delegates than people would have considered possible when he was driving a pick-up truck around Iowa with one aide. He is particularly popular with very socially conservative Christians, who tend to vote based on candidates who strictly support federal government restrictions on things like access to abortions, gay marriage, evolution education, climate science, etc... and care a little less about issues such as government structure and economics . The longer the battle for votes within the Republican Party goes on, the more secure President Obama appears to be in winning the November presidential election.
Speaking of how unconcerned Pres. Obama is about the coming national election, he, like most of the rest of the US, has been following the college basketball tournament, more commonly, and somewhat hyperbolically called "NCAA March Madness". 68 colleges take part in the tournament and it goes from mid-March until the beginning of April. This past weekend were the first two rounds. Almost everyone, including the President, fills out a bracket - betting (if betting were legal in the US, which it largely isn't) on who will win each game - in a pool with some friends and colleagues; sometimes up to 200 are playing against each other. The games are held on Thursdays through Sundays for 3 weeks and the weekday games result in more lost time at work in the US than any other event. My bracket, which I am entirely dooming by mentioning here, is currently leading the pool I am in. This will almost assuredly not last the week. 

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

As you might guess, I am still on the same project in Detroit. We have been working with the team and the client for almost ten months now, and everything is running very smoothly. On a long term project, the relationship with the client is much easier in some respect. We have developed our reputation within the organization and know our way around the corporate structure. We can be more efficient as a result.

Besides working on my project, I am involved with our recruiting here in the US - we are currently conducting interviews for our MBA internships over here. It's the final round.  We talked to students from the University of Michigan last Friday, and today we will talk to students from the Kellogg School of Management and the Chicago Booth School of Business. I enjoy doing  the interviews and I look forward to seeing some of the students again as MBA Summer Associates at our office. A few of the interns from last year will join us as Senior Consultants after graduation.

Over the weekend I was in Raleigh, North Carolina, visiting family. It was very nice, especially because we're having an unseasonably warm winter here in the US. The Super Bowl was held over the weekend, a US tradition now about as popular as Christmas, and I had a good time watching that, and the multi-million dollar commercials.

The Super Bowl was a welcome distraction from the Republican primaries that are still going on. By winning Florida and a few other states last week, Mitt Romney managed to create some distance between himself and his rivals – he then promptly lost all momentum by losing three consecutive states to long-shot Rick Santorum.  With an improving economy in the US it likely won't matter anyway as all Republican candidates are polling behind Pres. Obama. Here in the US, we are also very concerned about the European debt crisis. Over the last few months we had a fairly steady economic growth in the US, and we are concerned that the crisis might put an end to that upswing. 

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

Christmas was nice again this year. I was in New York for a few days both before and after it (my parents are in upstate NY, which is where I was for Christmas). The weather was bizarrely warm and the crowds in the touristy areas were ridiculous. But it was a great trip and we had a great meal at Fatty Crab, a Malaysian restaurant in Chelsea. We also stopped by McSorley's in New York. It is the oldest operating bar in the city and provides two options: light beer (in color not calories) and dark beer. I would recommend both. Other than a short layover in Chicago I´ve been back to Detroit since the beginning of January. I am now in month nine of my current project. It is going well and it has been interesting to be involved with a single client for this long. The team is expanding again next week and it will be nice to build in some additional Roland Berger help. My wife took me to 'How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying' while in New York. Daniel Radcliffe can't really sing but teenage girls evidently love him. We also went to see the US version of 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'. It was good. As far as university recruiting goes, we are just starting our summer internship recruiting activities and I'll be taking part in some of the interviews over the next few weeks. We are also working on setting up a volunteer day in the Chicago public schools. We helped teach a financial literacy course last year and it was a great experience and so we are in process of arranging a day for this year, too. Like most of the US (well, most of the half that bothers to vote), I'm following the Republican primaries to see who will run against Pres. Obama in November. It appears as if Mitt Romney will be selected. If so, it will be an interesting test of how much faith the American public puts in an ex-consultant's ability to – positively – influence our economy.

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

My project is still going well. We have reduced the team to just me through January. A few high level meetings are still taking place, keeping me pretty busy – but I’m learning a lot and enjoying it. My wife and I started a vacation on the 19th and it is nice to have break. We're in NYC for a few days to meet with friends and do some last minute Christmas shopping before heading to upstate New York for Christmas with my family. New York, while no Chicago, is a great city to spend a few days and we are enjoying it so far. Last weekend my wife and I threw a Christmas party. It was fun to catch up with friends (and a few RB colleagues) over a few cocktails and eggnog. We had about 40 people over and a small (but real!) Christmas tree (fake trees are sadly popular in the US). This past Saturday we went to a restaurant called “Takashi” in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago. It was a French/Asian fusion place – normally not my favorite and a little played out at this point, at least in the US – and really good. Citrus miso and haricot verts evidently go really well together. Either way, I highly recommend giving it a try when in Chicago.
I'm currently reading Mark Twain's "A Tramp Abroad". It is entertaining (his deadpan humor somehow translates surprisingly well across the past hundred years or so) and I am enjoying reading something with no correlation whatsoever to business. I've also been following the Durban COP meetings with some general disappointment. Until the US and China get involved in a meaningful way, it appears as if these talks will continue to be somewhat fruitless.

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

I've had a busy and fun last few weeks. I was in Munich for Operations training (I highly recommend) early last week before heading to my in-laws in Ohio for Thanksgiving. My family does a fairly large Thanksgiving celebration. There were about 20 odd people with lots of turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie and the rest of the Thanksgiving staples. I arrived a little late and so my meager contribution was mashed potatoes. I ran a four-mile race on Thanksgiving morning. It was a good crowd and a lot of fun. It also provided a built-in excuse to over-indulge on food later in the day. My wife and I also attended our last Northwestern football game of the season as they beat Minnesota. Sadly, they finished the season at a disappointing 6-6. Now I'm back in Detroit for my project this week. We just had our Christmas party for the North American offices at the W hotel near Lake Michigan in Chicago on Friday night. We had representatives from a number of colleagues in the US for project work from other offices (Frankfurt, London, Munich...) and had an enjoyable evening. I also finished 'The Big Short' by Michael Lewis on the flights to and from Germany. It was an interesting take on the financial madness of the early-to-mid 2000s. Looking forward to my vacation at the end of the year to relax and soak up some culture and get in some more reading!

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

My current project is in a very interesting phase still sending me to Detroit on a regular basis. I may become an official resident of the great state of Michigan before it is said and done. Last week, we finished final round interviews for Junior Consultants from Northwestern University to close out our final interview set for our start class of '12 for Chicago and Detroit. We have a dinner for prospective hires on the 18th of this month. It will be held at "Sepia", a repeat Michelin 1-star restaurant in Chicago, and will serve as an opportunity for our Chicago office to get together as well as a chance for the prospective consultants to meet our team. As far as extracurricular activities go, we celebrated a colleague's birthday at "Ocean Prime" in Troy, down the street from our Detroit office, last week. The colleague is a Senior Consultant from Frankfurt working in my project team. It was a great meal and another opportunity for one of our European colleagues to enjoy American steak – which as far as I can tell is the top priority for everyone visiting from overseas, that or the Apple Store visit to take advantage of the weak dollar . To continue the food theme, I cooked a nice meal with my wife (we both love to cook) for our friends last Sunday.

Gareth Hayes, Chicago

I'm on an interesting, and busy, project in the Detroit area. Detroit has been going through somewhat of a renaissance recently and it has been great to see part of that firsthand. In the US we are currently in the middle of a large push to increase our office size. MBA and undergraduate recruiting is a big part of this and so in the last few weeks I've been on-campus at the University of Michigan, Kellogg School of Management and the Chicago Booth School of Business. We took some high potentials to "Piece", a Chicago brewpub. We had a great turnout from the Chicago office consultants and sent home a group of students excited about Roland Berger. Outside of work, I am struggling to come to grips with the utter disappointment of Northwestern University's football season and trying to undo too many late night dinners by running (and by "running" I mean "jogging at an embarrassingly slow pace") the occasional 5k race in Chicago. In an attempt to retain some sort of intellectual pursuit outside of work I've taken to reading actual novels on my flights. Most recently I re-read "Animal Farm". Orwell's grasp of human behavior, particularly as it responds to a messianic figure, is fascinating to me.