The “higher-ups” you speak of are just the top PowerPoint jockeys who get promoted extremely fast — all professional services firms are highly incentivized to give people fancy titles so they can bill them at higher rates.

Even the senior management have never actually done or accomplished anything other than Googling stuff and pasting it on PowerPoint slides.

Consulting firms like this are a one way street for young grads, up or out. It’s not like McKinsey is recruiting successful founders or corporate executives with actual business acumen to sell PowerPoint slides by the hour.

There is no “there” there.