You will continually be amazed by the opportunities that Bain will present you with.

• Why Bain?

  My reasons for being at Bain have remained remarkably consistent over the years: The quality of the people, the relentless focus on results and the unique team-oriented environment.  My experience has been that at Bain, you will get to work with a truly exceptional set of individuals as peers, direct reports and supervisors.  The quality of your colleagues will force and simultaneously enable you to take your skill set to the next level.  What truly differentiates Bain in my mind is that these individuals refuse to take themselves too seriously and it is that cultural dynamic that has made the experience much more meaningful for me.  The second reason, Bain's relentless focus on results, has been a recurring theme since my first interactions with Bainees.  Bain teams evaluate themselves and their success based on real impact on the client that can be quantified in dollars and cent; teams take pride in the success of their clients and want to see it translate into share price appreciation, revenue growth or other tangible impact.  Teams hold their team management accountable to deliver the value and it is never enough to identify opportunities, they must be realized; a telling lesson for any would be manager.  The final theme is teaming.  From your first day at Bain to the day you retire, you will work in teams.  As a consultant, you spend time with the team cracking the case, working through complicated issues and bouncing questions off each other. As a partner you will team to introduce Bain to new clients and pull in additional expertise on an ongoing basis.  Very little is ever done on an individual basis as this is truly an apprenticeship business. 

• My passion

  Even in my short career, Bain has offered me tremendous flexibility to pursue my interests and passions. From a professional perspective, Bain has enabled me to explore my interest in coaching by involving me in the mentoring of junior colleagues as they think through their career paths and choices.  This is something that Bain supports formally (through mentorship programs) and informally (through strong office-based affiliation).  As I continue at Bain, this is something that I look forward to continuing to build upon as it drives real impact within our teams and for our clients.

  On a personal note, Bain provides significant flexibility in working models, which has enabled me to pursue my passions outside of work.  The first of these is family where Bain has always provided me with the flexibility to work at home and the ownership over my calendar to defend my weekends and key events.  Bain has also been open to allowing me to take significant blocks of vacation (something that is not always the case in service businesses).  This has allowed my family to indulge its passion for skiing and our goal of exploring ski destinations on as many continents as possible.

• My favorite case

  Given the breadth of cases that I have been able to work on at Bain (some 70 projects and counting), this is really a difficult question to answer.  That said, I would highlight an initiative that I was involved in early this summer.  We proactively approached an international corporation that was thinking of buying a competitor.  While we had never worked with this company before, we were able to use our credentials in supporting mergers and acquisitions to get an invitation to compete for the mandate.  At that point, it became an all hands on deck effort spanning three continents to win the business.  Partners from all over the globe pitched in to add their expertise and for three weeks running we had calls in the middle of the night with the client to walk through our approach.

  Eventually, we won the mandate for the diligence and potential merger integration over the entrenched competition.  Unfortunately, our celebration was short-lived as the company subsequently decided to back out of the transaction before the start of any formal diligence.  However, they were so impressed by the Bain approach and our commitment to field the best global base of experience that they subsequently invited us to present a proposal for how we would support their overall strategy development.  This work is currently underway in our Asian offices.

  To me, this process is a great example of the power of Bain teaming.  The responsiveness and investment of the partner group was immensely re-assuring and re-inforced the core values of Bain teaming that excite me about this firm.

• My personal results story

  My favorite personal results story happened relatively early in my Bain career when I was a second year consultant.  At that point, we had been engaged by a traditional telecom company that was trying to evaluate its strategic options.  At the time, the outlook was bleak, with core revenues declining at 20% per year due to a structural shift in the market.

  Our team built a considerable factbase around the market and its likely trends, including competitor motivations and actions.  From this, we were able to create a gameboard that detailed the likely competitive moves and acquisitions in the industry.

  The implication of this work was that our client would quickly become marginalized but that it could extract significant value for its stake holders by selling itself to one of the emerging players.  Taking a "true north" approach, this was the approach that we took to the CEO and after significant debate the company did sell itself.

  This case remains a personal highlight due to the creativity of the gameboard approach, the obvious impact and the willingness of the Bain partners to take a very difficult recommendation to their client.  It also established that Bain partners would "do the right thing" and rather than maximizing their revenue, they would do what was right for the client and its stakeholders.

• A final thought

  You will continually be amazed by the opportunities that Bain will present you with.  The learning curve is phenomenal and this truly is a job that will stretch you while affording you the opportunity to work with talented individuals in situations that allow you to have real impact.  We hope that you will share our enthusiasm and consider Bain as part of your post-MBA plans.