The Strategy Skills Podcast: Hear the thinking behind the slides

In a conversation about hospitals, the host of The Strategy Skills Podcast arrived with a plausible explanation. Healthcare was getting expensive because medicines cost more, doctors cost more, and private equity was getting involved. His guest, mathematician Eugene Litvak, wanted to talk about something less glamorous: the surgery schedule. A familiar story about rising prices was becoming a problem about the uneven arrival of patients. The host, Michael, paused to acknowledge that the discussion had taken him somewhere he had not expected.

That moment in episode 495 captures what makes this FIRMSconsulting show useful. You hear an explanation being examined. For someone whose working day involves defending a recommendation, watching an experienced interviewer revise his starting point can be more instructive than another beautifully finished answer.

A strategy project, episode by episode

Strategy Skills launched in 2015, four years after FIRMSconsulting’s case-interview podcast. Its early archive had an unusually specific subject: a Corporate Strategy and Transformation study. The publisher describes a multi-billion-dollar energy company. Listeners could follow analyses, client interactions and recommendations, with accompanying videos and presentations available through the business.

Look at the titles from that first year. One installment concerns the organizational-design stream and its trade-offs. Another introduces the visioning workshop in week four. This is the vocabulary of work in progress. A workshop requires preparation; an organizational recommendation creates tensions. The series makes room for those intermediate steps, where a neat idea encounters people with competing demands.

My reading of the format is that its advantage lies in sequence. A framework can fit on a page. Judgment takes longer to observe. Following a project gives the listener a chance to ask why this analysis came before that meeting, or why a team narrowed its options. The order becomes part of the lesson.

The pianist who built the classroom

FIRMSconsulting’s founder, Kris Safarova, has a background that supplies a pleasing interruption to the standard consulting biography. Before business, she was a classical concert pianist who toured Europe. She subsequently earned business degrees, including an Ivey MBA, and worked in consulting and corporate banking. Her official biography dates the parent business to 2010.

By 2019, Ivey’s alumni magazine was describing the podcasts as a deliberate part of the business. They promoted membership services while reaching people unable to join paid programs. Safarova explained the editorial focus with admirable economy:

“We stick to just two topics: case interviews and strategy. There is so much to cover.”

Kristina Safarova · Ivey Intouch · 2019

The classroom also draws on people who have practiced at senior levels. Kevin P. Coyne, a former co-leader of McKinsey’s worldwide strategy practice, teaches FIRMSconsulting programs. Bill Matassoni, a former McKinsey and BCG partner, contributes a series on the thinking and marketing behind strategy. These are individual teaching relationships; their former employers supply biographical context.

Free listening. A considered purchase.

The podcast is the free entrance to a larger education business. StrategyTraining sells video memberships; FIRMSconsulting also offers books, document resources and coaching. The economic logic is easy to understand: prospective customers can spend time with the teaching before deciding whether to pay for more of it.

The distinction between the middle plans matters. Premium members earn Insider access after six consecutive months, beginning with the seventh renewal, subject to terms. Annual Insider membership grants that access immediately. Legacy adds biweekly group coaching. Equal-looking monthly equivalents can conceal different starting conditions, so compare what you can use today as well as the price.

For an aspiring consultant, interview preparation may justify one choice. A corporate strategist seeking project walkthroughs may care about another. A casual listener can stay with the free feed. Treat the purchase as a curriculum decision: which material addresses the work you actually need to do?

The archive needs an assignment

There is an obvious temptation here: keep listening. In a letter published by FIRMSconsulting, one member described struggling to apply lessons while learning too much and needing time to absorb them. It is one person’s experience, but it identifies a practical limit of abundant educational content. Recognition comes quickly. Application can demand a slower afternoon.

A useful experiment is to pick an episode that matches a problem on your desk. Write the problem in one sentence. Record the assumption the conversation makes you question. Then specify what evidence would support or overturn it. This is an editorial suggestion, not a promised FIRMSconsulting result. It gives listening a stopping point and makes the next action visible.

The conditions matter. Audio cannot provide every spreadsheet, full project document or supervised rehearsal. Without access to relevant evidence, or an opportunity to act, a lesson may remain interesting rather than useful. The podcast makes most sense as preparation for work you can attempt, discuss and revise.

The questions keep moving

The current feed ranges well beyond its early energy study. In May 2026, BCG partner Kristy Ellmer discussed transformation and the human side of execution. September brought finance professor Jesper Rangvid on interest rates, followed by a classics release featuring Justin Bookey’s table-tennis leadership lessons. The spread is wide enough that choosing matters more than completion.

McKinsey’s Inside the Strategy Room is another strategy-focused listening option. Strategy Skills’ distinctive invitation is its connection to a study-based curriculum. Start where an unfinished question resembles your own. When the hospital conversation turns toward scheduling, the lesson is to inspect the mechanism. Before opening the slide deck, ask whether you have understood the problem.