An alternative career model called the "problem track" is challenging the traditional "partner track" in consulting. Suggesting that the industry's top talent could, and perhaps should, redirect their skills from corporate profits to solving the world's most urgent problems.
Note: Names have been changed to protect the anonymity of the consultants featured.
There’s a blueprint for professional success so well-worn it barely needs to be explained. You enter consulting. You work the hours. You build the resume. You master the frameworks. You impress the partners. And eventually — if you’re good enough, and tough enough — you become one of them.
It’s the “partner track,” and in many ways it’s a marvel of institutional design. It offers clarity, status and security. It channels an extraordinary amount of young, ambitious energy into a single, well-defined goal.
But there’s another path I want to talk about — one far less defined, far less optimized, but arguably far more consequential. Let’s call it the “problem track.” Instead of aiming your ambition toward becoming a partner at a consulting firm, you aim it at the world’s most urgent, complex challenges: stopping pandemics, reducing AI risk, ending extreme poverty, to name just a few.
What would happen if even a fraction of the energy and brilliance devoted to optimizing quarterly earnings got redirected toward keeping the world safe, fed and healthy?
The Consulting Skill Set as a Missing Piece
There’s a paradox at the heart of consulting: you’re trained as a generalist—someone who can walk into any business, in any industry and advise the CEO. And yet, when it comes to working on the world’s biggest social problems, you feel underqualified and lacking in the relevant expertise. But what have you been training for, if not to enter messy, unfamiliar systems, figure out how they really work, and change them—under enormous time pressure, with skeptical stakeholders and without perfect information?
It’s resource mobilization: getting buy-in from people who don’t want to change. It’s meta-learning: mastering new domains quickly. It’s operational execution: not just imagining a better process, but making it happen at scale.
And these aren’t just “transferable skills” in the HR sense. They’re precisely the skills that are most needed to address global challenges. We often treat the world’s hardest problems as if they’re about ideas — discovering the right policy or building the perfect technology. But over and over again, experts will tell you the bottleneck isn’t the idea. Its implementation.
We know how to distribute vaccines. But can you actually get them to remote clinics with fragile cold chains, local buy-in and limited staff? We know ensuring AI deploys safely is important. But who aligns the research teams, coordinates with policymakers and balances the budgets? We have the climate models that show where disaster will strike. But who secures the funding, manages the risk and drives the infrastructure buildout?
The Gap Between Prestige and Urgency
Here’s the tension. Consulting cultivates exactly the skill set these challenges need. But the incentives don’t direct any individual consultants to work there.
Take Ben. Like many, he planned to “grind it out” in consulting until 40, then finally do something impact-focused. It’s a surprisingly common strategy — defer impact for decades while accumulating financial security and social capital. But the irony is that by the time many people feel “ready,” their skills have drifted away from the messiness of actual problem-solving toward managing corporate politics and extractive efficiency, not to mention the lifestyle inflation and golden handcuffs that make it even harder to walk away.
Meanwhile, the world’s hardest problems don’t wait. COVID didn’t pause for anyone’s promotion cycle. Neither will the next pandemic, the next nuclear crisis, nor the next wave of tech breakthroughs. Millions are dying right now without access to basic health care, clean water or sufficient food. These challenges don’t politely schedule themselves for after you’ve finished maximizing your salary. They need your skills and energy now.
And the truth is, these roles exist. Organizations like the Gates Foundation, RAND, and the new AI Safety Institutes actively recruit consultants who can navigate complexity at speed. Consultants like Bridget have transitioned into AI governance roles that demand rapid learning and cross-sector coordination. Others have used their consulting skill set to build global health startups from scratch, lead pandemic preparedness efforts, or take the helm of major animal welfare NGOs.
The “problem track” is no less demanding than the partner track. If anything, it can be more so. But its rewards are measured not in salary bands or titles, but in lives improved, risks reduced, futures preserved.
Why This Path Is So Hard to See
If consultants are so well-equipped, why aren’t more working on what matters most?
Part of the answer is cultural — or maybe narrative. Consulting firms are master storytellers. They offer a story of success so compelling, so legible that it crowds out alternatives. You can tell your parents, your friends, your LinkedIn followers exactly what the plan is. There’s a ladder, and you’re climbing it.
The “problem track” doesn’t have a ladder. It has need. It has urgency. But it doesn’t have an HR department laying out your 12-year career plan. You have to design it yourself.
There’s also money, of course. It’s true that many impact-focused roles pay less than staying the course to partner, but often more than people expect. Many consultants maintain six-figure incomes during these transitions. But the real shift isn’t just financial — it’s psychological. You’re trading a clear, status-laden path for one that’s ambiguous, less classically prestigious to your peers, and harder to explain at dinner parties.
What It Looks Like to Make the Leap
And yet, people do do it. In my network, dozens have transitioned from big firms to doing work they see as 7.5 times more impactful on average.
Ben ultimately became an entrepreneur in public health, using SMS reminder systems to improve childhood vaccination rates in developing nations. Paul left BCG to join his government’s Department of Science, Innovation and Technology, applying structured problem-solving to AI policy. Stephanie used her consulting experience to scale evidence-based interventions for malnutrition.
Carol left McKinsey to become Chief of Staff at GiveDirectly, helping steer one of the world’s most ambitious direct cash transfer organizations. Kris took on a Managing Director role at Mercy for Animals, advancing large-scale efforts to improve conditions for billions of farmed animals.
These aren’t stories of self-sacrifice. They’re stories of alignment — of using hard-won skills to serve goals that matter. It’s not a different kind of person. It’s a different kind of ambition.
The Track Less Taken
The real question isn’t, “Why would I leave the partner track?” It’s, “What happens if I don’t?”
Our survey data suggests most of these transitions wouldn’t have happened without structured support. Consultants intend to have an impact “later,” but the incentives and comforts of the partner track make it easy to delay indefinitely.
So ask yourself the ten-year question: When you look back, would you rather be known for growing a company’s market share — or for helping prevent the next global crisis? Which contribution feels truer to your values?
The partner track has a blueprint. The problem track doesn’t. It’s harder. It’s scarier. But it’s waiting for you to design it.
Sarah Pomeranz is founder and CEO of Consultants for Impact and a 2025 Consulting Magazine Rising Star. A former top 5% performer at Accenture, she has advised over 500 consultants and supported 100+ high-impact career transitions through her firm. She is a graduate of Rutgers University and co-founder of a patent-holding clean water startup, Sarah writes and speaks on responsible global impact and has pledged to donate 10% of her lifetime earnings to highly effective charities.
© Arc, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to TMSalesOperations@arc-network.com. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.