Author: Taylor Warfield, Former Bain Manager and interviewer

Last Updated: September 25, 2026

 

Why Strategy& decides more offers at the firm than any single case, and a winning answer names three or four reasons no other firm could claim. This guide gives you the seven strongest reasons, two sample answers you can adapt, and the mistakes that get candidates written off as McKinsey, BCG, and Bain backups.

 

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Key Takeaways

 

A strong answer to why Strategy& combines the firm's strategy through execution model, its position as the only strategy practice of its scale inside a professional services network, and one personal reason drawn from your own research or conversations.

 

• Give three or four reasons, not one, and make at least one of them specific to you

 

• Lead with Strategy& rather than PwC, because interviewers screen out candidates who cannot tell the two apart

 

• Strategy& has more than 5,000 strategy professionals inside a PwC network of 364,000 people across 136 countries

 

• The firm dates its heritage to 1914, when Booz coined the term management consultant

 

• Name one Strategy& report you read or one consultant you spoke with, since generic praise reads as a red flag

 

• Keep the spoken answer to 60 to 90 seconds

 

What Is the Best Answer to "Why Strategy&"?

 

The best answer to why Strategy& names three or four reasons that are true only of Strategy&: the strategy through execution model inside PwC, the century-old strategy heritage, the firm's depth in an industry you care about, and a personal reason drawn from a conversation or a report you actually read. Deliver it in 60 to 90 seconds.

 

Structure matters more than eloquence here. Build the answer in three layers so the interviewer can follow it without effort.

 

1. The firm reason: what Strategy& can do that a pure-play strategy firm cannot, or that a broader consulting practice cannot
   
   
2. The work reason: the specific type of project, industry, or capability that pulls you toward this firm rather than a peer
   
   
3. The personal reason: the conversation, report, or experience that made this concrete for you

 

The third layer is where most candidates fall short. Anyone can read a website. Only you can say that you spoke with a senior associate in the Chicago office about a post-merger integration and came away wanting that specific work.

 

Why Do Interviewers Ask "Why Strategy&"?

 

Interviewers ask why Strategy& to test whether you would actually accept an offer. Strategy& competes for the same candidates as McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, and it loses a meaningful share of the ones it wants. Screening for genuine interest is the firm's defense.

 

There are four things the interviewer is listening for.

 

• Offer acceptance: whether you would say yes, or whether you are holding Strategy& as insurance

 

• Research depth: whether you know what the firm actually does day to day, not just what its homepage says

 

• Self-awareness: whether your stated reasons match your background and the rest of your answers

 

• Values fit: whether your motivation lines up with the five PwC values your stories are scored against

 

In my experience coaching candidates through the Strategy& behavioral interview, this question ends more candidacies than a mediocre case does. A shaky case with strong motivation often survives. Flawless math with a generic motivation answer usually does not.

 

That asymmetry surprises people, but it makes sense from the firm's side. You can learn to solve a Strategy& case interview in a few months. Wanting to be there is much harder to manufacture.

 

When I interviewed candidates at Bain, the motivation answer was the first thing I wrote on the scorecard, and a weak one colored how I read everything that followed. Strategy& interviewers work the same way.

 

What Are the 7 Best Reasons to Give for Why Strategy&?

 

The seven reasons below hold up under follow-up questions because each one rests on a verifiable fact about the firm. Pick three or four that are honestly true for you and drop the rest.

 

Reason	The fact behind it	Best for
Strategy through execution	Teams stay on past the recommendation and work with PwC specialists to implement	Operators and engineers
The PwC client platform	PwC works with 82% of the Fortune Global 500 across 136 countries	Anyone drawn to large-cap clients
A century of strategy heritage	Traces to 1914 and the firm that coined the term management consultant	Candidates who value research
Industry depth early	Eleven named industry practices, from aerospace to sports and entertainment	Career switchers with a sector
Deals and private equity work	Commercial due diligence and integration alongside PwC's deals network	Banking and PE backgrounds
Regional strength	Long-standing government and corporate work in the Middle East and Germany	Candidates targeting those offices
A small team, a big platform	Roughly 5,000 strategy professionals inside a network of 364,000	People who want visibility

 

Reason #1: Strategy through execution

 

This is the firm's own pitch, and it is the single most useful reason you can give. Strategy& describes itself on its legacy page as the only strategy firm of its scale operating inside a professional services network. In practice that means the team that recommends a target operating model can hand off to PwC colleagues who build it.

 

Say this well and you separate yourself instantly. Say it badly and you sound like you memorized a tagline. The difference is whether you can name what execution actually involves: technology implementation, tax structuring, regulatory work, and change management.

 

Reason #2: The PwC client platform

 

PwC reported gross revenues of US$56.9 billion for the 12 months ending 30 June 2025, with 364,000 people serving clients in 136 countries and 82% of the Fortune Global 500, according to its 2025 Global Annual Review. Advisory alone accounted for US$24.3 billion of that.

 

Those relationships matter to a strategy consultant because they open doors. A pure-play firm often has to win the account cold. Strategy& frequently starts from an existing PwC relationship with the same C-suite.

 

Reason #3: A century of strategy heritage

 

Strategy& dates its history to 1914, when the Chicago firm founded by Edwin Booz coined the term management consultant. That lineage runs through Booz & Company, which PwC acquired in April 2014 and rebranded as Strategy&.

 

The heritage shows up in the firm's published research rather than in nostalgia. Fit for Growth, the Katzenbach Center, the Org DNA Profiler, and strategy+business all trace back to that legacy. Referencing one of them by name signals you looked past the careers page.

 

Reason #4: Industry depth from your first project

 

Strategy& organizes around eleven industry practices, including aerospace and defense, consumer and retail, health and pharmaceuticals, financial services, and sports and entertainment. Candidates who already care about one sector can point to it directly.

 

This is the strongest reason for career switchers. A supply chain analyst who wants industrial manufacturing strategy has a cleaner story at Strategy& than at a firm that staffs generalists across every sector for three years.

 

Reason #5: Deals and private equity strategy

 

A large share of the firm's work sits in commercial due diligence, deal strategy, and post-merger integration, often shoulder to shoulder with PwC's deals teams. If you came from banking or private equity, this is the reason that will land hardest. It also explains why so many candidates get tested on deals strategy cases during the interview process.

 

Be specific about which side of a deal interests you. Saying you want to size a target's addressable market is credible. Saying you find M&A exciting is not.

 

Reason #6: Regional strength where competitors are thinner

 

Strategy& has unusually deep government and corporate relationships in the Middle East and in Germany, both inherited from Booz & Company. Candidates targeting Dubai, Riyadh, Munich, or Frankfurt should say so plainly.

 

Geography is a legitimate reason as long as it is not your only one. Pair it with a work reason so it does not sound like you picked the firm off a map.

 

Reason #7: A small strategy team inside a very large firm

 

The firm's about page puts the strategy group at more than 5,000 partners, consultants, and staff worldwide. Set against PwC's 364,000 people, that is a small, tightly connected team with a very large platform behind it.

 

Candidates use this to argue for early exposure and visibility with partners. It also pairs naturally with a question about the Strategy& consulting career path and how quickly you can specialize.

 

What Is a Sample Answer to "Why Strategy&"?

 

Here are two sample answers, one for an undergraduate or pre-MBA candidate and one for a post-MBA or experienced hire. Read them aloud and time yourself. Both land between 75 and 90 seconds.

 

Sample answer for an undergraduate or pre-MBA candidate

 

You: "Three things pull me toward Strategy&. First, the strategy through execution model. I spent last summer at a manufacturer watching a strategy deck get shelved because nobody owned the rollout, and the idea of staying on a problem past the recommendation is exactly what I want out of the first few years of my career.

 

Second, the industry structure. I want to work in energy and sustainability, and Strategy& runs that as a named practice rather than a rotation I might land in by chance.

 

Third, the people I have met. I spoke with two associates in the Houston office last month, and both described being staffed on client-facing work in their first six weeks. One of them walked me through a capabilities assessment she ran for a utility, and that conversation is honestly why I moved Strategy& to the top of my list."

 

Sample answer for a post-MBA or experienced hire

 

You: "I spent four years in corporate development at a mid-cap healthcare company, and the pattern I kept running into was that the diligence work and the integration work sat with completely different advisors. Strategy& is one of the few firms where those live under one roof, because the deals strategy team plugs directly into PwC's transaction specialists.

 

The second reason is the health and pharmaceuticals practice. I want to keep building sector depth rather than start over as a generalist, and Strategy& lets me do that from the first project.

 

The third reason is more personal. A former colleague joined the New York office two years ago, and what he described about how partners run engagement teams matched how I want to work. I read the firm's work on capabilities-driven growth after that conversation, and it reframed how I think about portfolio decisions."

 

Notice what both answers avoid. Neither mentions prestige, compensation, or exit options, and neither compares Strategy& to another firm by name. If you want to understand the pay picture for your own decision-making, the Strategy& salary data is worth knowing, but it never belongs in this answer.

 

Use the same three or four reasons in your Strategy& cover letter. A motivation story that shifts between the application and the interview reads as improvised, and recruiters do compare the two.

 

My fit interview course walks you through how to build and deliver answers to 98% of the behavioral questions you will face in a few hours.

 

How Is "Why Strategy&" Different From "Why Consulting" and "Why PwC"?

 

These are three separate questions and interviewers notice when you answer the wrong one.

 

Why consulting is about the profession. Why PwC is about the network. Why Strategy& is about this specific strategy practice and nobody else.

 

Question	What it is really asking	The mistake to avoid
Why consulting?	Why this profession over banking, industry, or graduate school	Listing skills you would gain anywhere
Why PwC?	Why this network, its values, and its way of serving clients	Talking about audit or tax by mistake
Why Strategy&?	Why this strategy practice over Oliver Wyman, Kearney, or an MBB firm	Answering with generic PwC talking points

 

The overlap trips people up because Strategy& sits inside PwC. A safe rule is to spend about 80% of your answer on the strategy practice and the remaining 20% on what the wider network adds. Reversing that ratio is one of the fastest ways to lose the room, and it is the same trap candidates fall into when they prepare for why PwC and reuse the material without editing it.

 

You should also prepare a clean why consulting answer, because it almost always comes first in the same interview. The two answers need to sound like they came from the same person.

 

What Mistakes Should You Avoid When Answering "Why Strategy&"?

 

Five mistakes account for nearly every weak answer I hear. After more than 10 years of helping candidates land offers at top consulting firms, I can usually spot all five in the first 30 seconds.

 

• Reasons that fit any firm: smart colleagues, steep learning curve, and interesting clients describe every strategy firm on earth

 

• Leading with PwC: opening with the Big Four network signals you do not understand what Strategy& is or what it is not

 

• Naming people you never spoke with: interviewers do check, and a fabricated conversation ends the process immediately

 

• Reciting strategy through execution without content: if you cannot explain what execution means at this firm, skip the phrase entirely

 

• Signaling MBB is your first choice: saying you want a top-tier strategy experience tells the interviewer exactly where they rank

 

The last one is subtle and it costs candidates offers every recruiting season. Phrases like "a firm of this caliber" or "the same quality of work as the top firms" position Strategy& as a proxy for something else. Describe the firm on its own terms instead.

 

One more failure mode deserves a mention. Some candidates over-prepare and deliver a polished, four-part answer that sounds like it was written by a committee. Interviewers would rather hear something slightly rough and obviously yours.

 

How Do You Research Strategy& Before Your Interview?

 

Good research takes about three hours and it is the difference between a specific answer and a generic one. Work through these six steps in order.

 

Tip #1: Read the firm's own recruiting pitch first

 

Strategy& publishes a Why Strategy& section on its careers page listing four things it believes it offers: high-impact decision making, colleagues who sharpen your thinking, impactful client collaboration, and growth through experience. Those are the terms the firm uses internally.

 

Do not repeat them word for word. Use them to check that your reasons point in the same direction as the firm's own story.

 

Tip #2: Pick one industry and read two Strategy& reports in it

 

Choose the practice you would want to join and read two pieces of its published research end to end. Take notes on one finding that surprised you.

 

That single finding becomes the most memorable line in your answer. It is also the detail that survives a follow-up question, because you can actually discuss it.

 

Tip #3: Talk to two people who work there

 

Two conversations are enough and they do not need to be long. A 20-minute informational interview with an associate gives you more usable material than ten hours of reading.

 

Ask what a typical staffing looks like and what surprised them in their first year. Write down the exact phrase they use, then quote it back in your answer.

 

Tip #4: Map one reason to a PwC value

 

PwC's five values are act with integrity, make a difference, care, work together, and reimagine the possible. Your behavioral stories will be scored against them, so pick the one that genuinely matches how you work and let it show up in your motivation answer.

 

Keep it light. Naming a value outright sounds robotic, while describing a moment that shows it lands far better. That works best when you deliver the story using the STAR method.

 

Tip #5: Swap in a competitor's name and see if the answer still works

 

Read your answer out loud with Kearney or Oliver Wyman substituted for Strategy&. If it still makes sense, you have written a why consulting answer, not a why Strategy& answer.

 

Every sentence that survives the swap needs to be cut or sharpened. This test takes two minutes and it catches almost everything.

 

Tip #6: Rehearse it out loud, not in your head

 

Record yourself once and listen back. Answers that read beautifully often sound stilted, and you will only catch that by hearing it.

 

Practicing with someone who has sat on the other side of the table speeds this up considerably. My interview coaching sessions cover both the fit answers and the case in a single hour.

 

Do the research, pick three or four reasons that are honestly yours, and rehearse until the answer sounds like a conversation rather than a recital. A well-built answer to why Strategy& will carry you through the fit portion of every interview in the process, including the final round, where partners weigh motivation most heavily. The single most valuable hour you can spend is the one where you talk to someone who already works there.

 

Frequently Asked Questions

 

What is the best answer to why Strategy&?

 

The best answer names three or four reasons that are true only of Strategy&, then adds one reason that is true only of you. Strong candidates point to the strategy through execution model, the PwC client platform, the firm's industry depth, and something specific they learned from a consultant they spoke with. Deliver it in 60 to 90 seconds and lead with Strategy& rather than PwC.

 

Is Strategy& part of PwC?

 

Yes. Strategy& is PwC's global strategy consulting business, formed when PwC acquired Booz & Company in April 2014 and rebranded it. The firm describes itself as the only strategy firm of its scale operating inside a professional services network. It keeps its own brand, recruiting process, and career track while drawing on PwC's wider network.

 

How long should your why Strategy& answer be?

 

Aim for 60 to 90 seconds, which is roughly 150 to 220 spoken words. That is long enough for three or four reasons with one concrete detail each, and short enough that the interviewer stays engaged. Anything past two minutes starts to sound rehearsed.

 

Is it bad to say you also applied to McKinsey, BCG, and Bain?

 

It is not bad to have applied, and interviewers assume you did. What hurts you is framing Strategy& as the fallback. If asked directly, confirm you are interviewing broadly in strategy consulting, then pivot immediately to what makes Strategy& your genuine preference. Never volunteer the comparison yourself.

 

Do Strategy& interviewers ask why Strategy& in every round?

 

You should expect it in most interviews. Strategy& pairs fit questions with the case in nearly every interview, and the final round usually includes at least one interview weighted heavily toward fit. Prepare one core answer and vary the emphasis so the same partner does not hear the identical script twice.

 

Is Strategy& considered a top strategy consulting firm?

 

Yes. Strategy& is generally placed in the tier just below McKinsey, BCG, and Bain, alongside firms such as Oliver Wyman, Kearney, EY-Parthenon, and Monitor Deloitte. It is one of the largest Big Four strategy practices, with more than 5,000 strategy professionals worldwide. The work is genuine corporate strategy rather than technology or risk consulting.

 

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