ENR Practice Consultant, Global Energy & Materials

Company and PPK Overview

Bain & Company is the management consulting firm that the world’s business leaders come to when they want results. Bain advises clients on strategy, operations, information technology, organization, private equity, digital transformation and strategy, and mergers and acquisition, developing practical insights that clients act on and transferring skills that make change stick.  The firm aligns its incentives with clients by linking its fees to their results. Bain clients have outperformed the stock market 4 to 1. Founded in 1973, Bain has 58 offices in 37 countries, and its deep expertise and client roster cross every industry and economic sector.

Bain has formalized industry and capability “Practices” which are integral to how Bain wins and delivers results to its clients. Together they form PPK (Product, Practice, and Knowledge). The role of a Practice is to drive growth for Bain in a particular industry or capability together with offices, and boost Bain’s expertise and commercial excellence. 

Department overview

The Practice Consultant will be part of Bain’s Global Energy & Materials Center (GEM-C).

Bain has recently established the GEM-C to support Bain’s ambition for commercial acceleration in energy and materials. GEM-C will be a step-change in developing and maintaining world-class intellectual property to support commercial efforts – this is not a siloed ‘think tank’ but rather will be integrated into our commercial processes. GEM-C is on a multi-year journey aiming to address several pain points in the current expertise model that is both fragmented and resource-intensive.

The GEM-C works across multiple practices and several Bain functions to develop and maintain Bain’s expertise related to energy and materials. Collectively we refer to this as the GEM-C ecosystem. Key practices and stakeholder groups include:

• Energy & Natural Resource (ENR):  Primary user of GEM-C services; provides “voice of frontline” and direction on client needs.  Ultimate accountability for maintenance and development of supply-side IP and GEM-C overall
• Sustainability:   Developer of carbon transition related products for ENR, and energy transition products for AMS, PEG and other industries.  Differential focus on product development (vs. expertise)
• Social Impact:   Deploy investments to advance Bain’s knowledge and commercial positioning on priority topics
• RDS:  Support the development of partnerships with key data vendors
• Marketing:   Deep interfaces with GEM-C to ensure depth and breadth on key topics externally. Innovation to streamline processes, including enhanced publication schedules

The ENR practice is the primary user of GEM-C services. ENR consists of five sectors: Agribusiness, Chemicals, Mining, Oil & Gas and Utilities & Renewables. Themes like Energy and the Energy Transition, Circularity, Food Sustainability, Engine 2.0, Technology, and Digital innovation are at the core of these sectors and will occupy ever greater centre in the work pertaining to these industries.

Position Summary

The Practice Consultant will support IP and expertise development across GEM-C. The primary topic scope for the Practice Consultant is to support topics which relate to minerals and to broader commodity dynamics (similar team roles exist focused on electrons and focused on molecules).

Key content topics (not exhaustive) included in the scope are critical minerals, and EV / battery value chains.  The Practice Consultant will also work with other topic owners to define impacts of broader market developments on mineral-/material-focused sectors (in mining mostly, in close collaboration with the sector Practice Manager), and will be responsible to work with all ENR sector Practice Managers to ensure topic IP is tailored to the individual sectors to maximize commercial value of the IP. The Practice Consultant will on a regular basis also support macro-level priority topics for GEM-C including for example topics related to geopolitics, and commodity or energy management and trading.

Topic prioritization will be done at the GEM-C level, based on inputs from ENR and Sustainability leadership, frontline partners, and our clients. Therefore, the Practice Consultant will report into and closely work with the Head of the GEM-C (Peter Meijer) to define focus and to get overall guidance on activities. For macro-level priority topics the Practice Consultant will also work directly with the Head of GEM-C for content guidance.

For execution of prioritized topics the Practice Consultant will work directly with the most relevant sector Practice Manager (especially the individual covering Mining), as well as with lead partners on specific cross-sector topics.

Essential Functions

The Practice Consultant will focus the majority of time on IP development and deployment. As expertise grows there is opportunity to increase the share of time on direct selling support.

IP design & development

• Develop elements of cross-sector specific IP, including POVs, reports
• Support POV development on overall GEM-C priorities, implications of macro-level changes into energy and materials, and cross-sector transition themes
• Support the management of critical IP for select cross-sector priorities, in close collaboration with key experts (especially PPK sector managers and select partner and SMAP affiliates who have specific expertise)
• Perform market modelling efforts in close collaboration with BCN IP team, and in alignment with Intersect
• Support GEM-C leaders in ensuring consistency of viewpoints / insights of topics and IP, with broader views across the GEM-C ecosystem (Intersect and other topics) and outside of GEM-C (other practices where relevant)
• Actively seek for opportunities to automate workflows (e.g., adopting data APIs, automating basic updates, …)

IP deployment, delivery and commercialization

• Build elements of introduction and training materials for affiliates to get up to speed faster on the latest topic IP
• Work across ENR sectors and regions to tailor generic insights to the sector or region, and create relevant materials to support commercial motions (selling and serving)
• Provide input on areas of expertise spike to the broader GEM-C and practice team (e.g., sector Practice Managers, KM team, BCN, Intersect)
• Support marketing efforts to bring topic insights to our clients (publications, events, …)

Selling and serving support

• Provide direct support to case teams during selling process and case delivery, leveraging specific topic expertise to provide best-of examples, approaches, templates

Qualifications

• 5+ years of experience in professional services or relevant industry experience
• Energy and materials experience and expertise, specifically in mineral-focused value chains (critical minerals / rare earths, mining)
• Deep understanding of professional services, ideally in a consulting or functional research setting
• Analytical and problem solving skills and expertise to push insights to conclusive recommendations 
• Ability to effectively drive a piece of work end-to-end with limited direction
• Can perform complex, accurate analysis
• Continuously learns from one experience to another and makes thoughtful recommendations on improvements 
• Structure and design impactful slides and updates; can clearly communicate insights and implications of work
• Steer and direct highly effective small meetings; participates in meetings with more senior stakeholders and appropriately shares opinion
• Track record of inspiring, motivating and apprenticing junior team members
• Affinity with digital tools and an interest to optimize workflows and develop new solutions that support Bain’s commercial strength