Corporate Executive Board – “Research company not a consulting practice,a waste of time for experienced practitioners, ok for new graduates briefly”

Pros

Great place for graduates starting out
Good process to learn how to do things
Good work ethic for people with no outside interests
Great relationship with Wall St analysts which clouds the real situation inside the organisation

Cons

Research is suspect, in that since leaving and having a chance to work with research case subject firms found that activities were no longer performed in those companies. Research cases are not followed up post publication to see if they are still applicable.
New graduates are better off joining a proper consulting practice and having a skill that is transferable. There is little practical interaction with clients on 'how' as opposed to reading out the 'what' and hoping the very busy client can figure out how to implement the ideas.
Very little practical experience within CEB and most of the research is conducted be grads with peer review done by CEB insiders.
Despite its classification as a consultancy, this is a research company and therefore the quality of the research is critical to the success of the company product. This is not McKinsey despite what the ex McKinsey executives think. Its probably closer to Harvard Research and its difficult to justify the business model compared to a Harvard Business annual membership which delivers more leading insight in a year combined with a networking organisation membership, one or two decent seminars a year on topics that are important to your organisation and then spend the rest on quality consulting to actually implement what a client needs.
Everyone inside CEB knows the business model does not support growth and this fact was hidden by the recession, Revenue was in steep decline before the recession hit.The executive (and the Wall St analysts) desperately hope that the new acquisitions will deliver new revenue streams.

Advice to Senior Management

Middle management, move on as soon as you can so that you can continue your career in a part of your chosen profession with more growth possibility. The longer you stay, the more difficult it will be.
Junior management, only stay for 1 year with the title then move on. See above.
Executive are beyond heading advice as people have been saying the same things and nothing has changed. I'm sure you comfort yourselves that its only those that left CEB that criticize. Not true. Any senior executive with a 10% approval rating should be removed by the investors and would have been except that the recession cloaked the bad leadership.