Practice Consultant, Global Energy & Materials (digital focus)

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 department stakeholders include:

• Energy & Natural Resource (ENR) Practice:  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 Practice:  Developer of carbon transition related products for ENR, and energy transition products for Advanced Manufacturing & Services (AMS) Practice, Private Equity Group (PEG) Practice and other industry Practices.  Differential focus on product development (vs. expertise)
• Social Impact Practice:  Deploy investments to advance Bain’s knowledge and commercial positioning on priority topics
• Research & Data Services (RDS) department:  Support the development of partnerships with key data vendors
• Marketing department:  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 supports the GEM-C in achieving its ambition by identifying and executing on opportunities to implement digital / technology solutions across the GEM-C ecosystem, supporting implementation of a tech-inspired approach to the GEM-C strategies, IP priorities and governance processes. The role provides a great opportunity for someone to develop and leverage expertise and make a direct impact to our overall commercial success.

The primary job responsibilities include 1) Engaging with GEM-C ecosystem entities to help identify opportunity to implement digital solutions to improve client solutions, enhance the generation of insights and IP, and to improve workflows, 2) Supporting the business case and development roadmap and prioritization process, 3) Help scope digital projects for execution, 4) Perform elements of development and delivery, with support of dedicated GEM-C digital resources in the Bain Capability Network (BCN), and 5) Engage across the GEM-C to upskill and train people on digital solutions.

The Practice Consultant reports to the Head of the GEM-C (Peter Meijer). The Practice Consultant will closely work together with the ENR sector teams and broader GEM-C ecosystem leaders.

Essential Functions

As the GEM-C Practice Consultant for Digital, your responsibilities will include but are not limited to:

Digital Product strategy, planning and operations

• Work across the GEM-C ecosystem to support the identification, development and execution of a digital product roadmap for GEM-C, aligning the technical roadmap to the business roadmap.
• Transform GEM-C IP and innovation concepts into tangible tech/AI products and solutions to enable consulting revenue (including project and product scoping).
• Support GEM-C leaders in driving alignment across GEM-C ecosystem and defining commonalities across tools (e.g., reference architecture, data models, etc.).
• Support the implementation of the strategic framework, tooling, product governance, reporting processes and operating models needed to drive successful innovation.

Solution Design, Development, Deployment, and Delivery

• Develop pieces of the solution, working collaboratively with and apprenticing team members; maintain direct touchpoints with case teams to inform solution development
• Contribute to definition and maintenance of clear, prioritized product backlogs.
• Support coordination across GEM-C digital resources and BCN Labs to enable team delivery and transparent, data-informed decisions; help identify risks and balance trade-offs on individual products and across the practice portfolio of tools.
• Support the execution of strategic initiatives and preparation of progress and outcome updates for GEM-C leadership.

Advisory and collaboration

• Provide input and analysis to GEM-C leaders on the vision enabled by tech/AI, overall product roadmap, prioritization, build/buy/partner and other strategic decisions to maximize innovation.
• Build relationships across the GEM-C ecosystem to collect feedback and test innovation concepts.
• Collaborate with key stakeholders and resource groups across Bain—including the Core Innovation Team (CIT), Vector, BCN/BCN Labs and others—to ensure alignment and effective delivery.
• Develop elements of AI capability-building efforts and assist with developing and delivering trainings to GEM-C team members.
• Where relevant, collaborate with client teams / clients to support technology implementation and scaling, test new features/functionality and solicit feedback on performance and impact.

Qualifications

• 5+ years of professional services or relevant industry experience
• Degree in Data Science, Data Engineering degree or similar preferred
• 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 Experience working closely with internal and external users to deeply understand, document, analyze, and synthesize user needs into product priorities, roadmap plans, and detailed specifications
• Facility/aptitude with product development life cycle for digital technologies 

• Proven track record of executing successful AI projects from concept to delivery

• Relevant experience or interest in digital solutions as a lever to drive business results
• Personal passion and excitement to learn new technologies, market trends and how AI will change your practice area 

Preferred

• Energy and materials affinity