I am a bit of a Consulting buff. I am planning to go into IT consulting when I graduate USC and for the time being am planning to make a career of it. So it was no surprise that I got sucked into an article in by David Whitford in
Fortune today about the (apparently) most influential consultant alive, Ram Charan.
It's a long article (for CNN), five full pages, and it's worth every word! I mean this guy is truly fascinating. He started college (in India) a the age of 15, went to Harvard Business School (graduated top 3% of his class), was a professor at a number of Universities before abandoning academia to pursue his passion of solving problems, aka consulting.
He never married, never had kids, he never even learned how to drive or bought his own place (until recently, although he is planning to move in "maybe never"). He lives out of hotels and airplanes. Rents an office in Dallas, TX (where he's never really been) and has his assistants FedEx him boxes with clothes and supplies to where ever he is in the world (and he's all over, trust me!)
If you have some time, and you are interested in reading a profile on a truly extraordinary (if at times peculiar) individual, read the article on the strange existence of Ram Charan.