I wouldn't say an MBA is a requirement, but to advance beyond an associate / consultant level you do need a good general understanding of finance, marketing and

I wouldn't say an MBA is a requirement, but to advance beyond an associate / consultant level you do need a good general understanding of finance, marketing and ops. There's definitely an inflection point where you become more of an expert in your clients' business than any specific technology. Eventually your skills trend towards sales and the business of consulting (staffing projects, managing margin, building capabilities) but that's not much different than the kind of leadership roles (estimating, hiring, mentoring, speaking at conferences, etc.) that senior ICs have to do to make that kind of money.