Bain & Company, Inc.

WHAT MAKES US A GREAT PLACE TO WORK

We are proud to be consistently recognized as one of the world’s best places to work. We are currently the top ranked consulting firm on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list and have earned the #1 overall spot a record seven times. Extraordinary teams are at the heart of our business strategy, but these don’t happen by chance. They require intentional focus on bringing together a broad set of backgrounds, cultures, experiences, perspectives, and skills in a supportive and inclusive work environment. We hire people with exceptional talent and create an environment in which every individual can thrive professionally and personally.

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

Bain & Company is looking to recruit an Expert Associate Partner to build upon the firm’s Performance Improvement capabilities with a specific focus on Capital Projects Acceleration solutions.   

The global economy must invest over $1.5T annually to succeed in the energy transition, though only a small fraction of projects are consistently delivered safely, on time, on budget, and on spec.  Across sectors, delivering capital projects is also getting harder – there are new complexities compounding existing challenges.

Bain’s Capital Projects Acceleration offering helps clients set a clear ambition for capital projects, ensure their readiness to embark on a large-scale capital campaign, and enhance and protect the value of their large capital projects. Our goal is to enable clients to achieve excellence across the Capital Projects spectrum, from ambition and portfolio decisions, to operating mode design, planning, and delivery.  

Bain’s Capital Projects Acceleration brings together expertise from across different industries including Mining, Oil & Gas, Utilities & Renewables, Aerospace & Defense and Metals, and has a unique approach to Capital Projects:

• Recognizing that capital project challenges go beyond engineering, framing them as strategic issues
• Applying a programmatic approach, looking not only at individual projects but also at the program and portfolio levels
• Taking a “whole of company” view, including all critical functions – not only those with direct ownership of capital development and delivery
• Amplifying our client teams’ capabilities by bringing together expertise from different industries

WHAT YOU’LL DO 

Client Impact 

You’ll primarily work alongside our case (engagement) teams in a client-serving role, partnering with client organizations, engage prospective clients and help build our commercial plan to help us increase our competitiveness as Capital Projects Acceleration solutions experts

• Benchmark client processes, costs, organization, adoption of technologies against other companies
• Interview and facilitate workshops with client employees, management teams and other stakeholders
• Support clients in conducting pilots / proof of concepts for select solutions 
• Move the client to action and build relationships with clients, calling on Performance Improvement practice expertise 
• Support collaboration and co-creation with senior, mid-level and junior clients and maintain client relationships over time
• Lead a work-stream and direct team resources accountable for a subset of the engagement answer and deliverables
• Identify, validate and prioritize potential client development opportunities
• Codify/recommend the best tools for each “use case” with an understanding of cost, timeline, resources, etc.
• Attend/lead client updates and presentations highlighting your expertise and experience
• Create and launch specific tools and products to drive Capital Projects Acceleration solutions with our client organizations 
• Actively bolster our thought leadership in Capital Projects Acceleration solution – creating high impact and differentiating blog posts, articles, media and other original ideas - to create demand for Bain’s Capital Projects Acceleration services with clients
• Develop productive senior level advisory relationships with mid to senior-level executives and ability to maintain client assets and client relationships over extended period, as an integral member of the Bain account team with differentiated expertise and capability
• Support the selling team with demand generation where applicable

Practice Impact–Expertise, Product, and IP

• Develop a repeatable model for embedding your expertise within casework; become a go-to expert internally 
• Expand Bain’s Capital Projects Acceleration offering to support a broader range of client projects through the hiring of external talent, development of current team members and rotation of internal resources
• Identify and potentially manage key expert partnerships    •    Develop project plans, including key activities, milestones, and timelines, to translate identified capital project solutions into plans that can be executed
• Drive continuous improvement and commercialization of our IP, products, and solutions
• Design global training sessions that build consultant fluency with Capital Projects Acceleration offering and Performance Improvement trends and capabilities

People/Firm Impact

• Typically staffed as an expert contributor/advisor, bringing expertise to supplement/complement the case team. May be staffed as traditional project lead on engagements where appropriate
• Communicate effectively with partner and case team concerning the work, the client relationship, and team professional development 
• Support teams through a combination of formal and informal allocations with deep guidance from Case Leadership
• Help maintain a non-hierarchical culture that attracts and breeds entrepreneurship and innovation; help position the Practice – and Bain more broadly – as a “great place to work”

ABOUT YOU

Required Technical Expertise

• Deep Expertise in managing large complex capital across app major value levers, including program assurance, capital efficiency, project governance, project value engineering anc. cost optimization, vendor contracting and management, procurement and supply chain/demand planning, risk management, schedule optimization, front line performance management, and delivery acceleration across major infrastructure, industrial or energy projects
• Proven experience working with C-suite stakeholders and senior engineering or construction leadership on complex project portfolios and performance improvement initiatives
• Strong understanding of the end-to-end capital project lifecycle, from front-end planning and budgeting through engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and handover
• Experience with leading digital tools and technologies applied to capital project delivery, including project management platforms, predictive analytics, AI-based capital project tools, and advanced planning and scheduling software
• Knowledge of emerging trends and innovations in capital project delivery
• Experience deploying or piloting technology solutions for project performance optimization
• Exposure to benchmarking and best practices across capital project-heavy industries and ability to translate those insights to a client-specific context
• Understanding of adjacent corporate functions (e.g., Finance, Procurement, Supply Chain) and their intersection with capital project governance and execution

Required Commercial Acumen

• Experience and technical expertise will lend credibility when providing input and support to commercial activities 
• Senior presence in meetings and high caliber client/communications skills.
• Broad understanding of business strategy, organization and capability development issues and answers across industry and functional domains
• Experience working with large-scale clients and finance organizations preferred
• Ability to help build out IP and monetize it, and build the product roadmap to improve over time. Specifically, be able to guide development of tools to help increase our ability to be seen as Capital Projects Acceleration specialists
• Ability to leverage insights across a diverse set of industries 

Additional qualifications

• Provide insight on how to “scale up” the right team and partners to provide depth and credibility with senior client teams 
• Experience in a senior client-facing leadership role with a leading consulting firm is preferred
• Has experience conducting client workshops and driving buy-in at multiple levels of the organization from junior to senior clients to create change.  
• Bachelor’s or advanced degree in engineering or related technical field is a plus, but not mandatory; deep expertise in capital project execution and transformation is most important

Personal Attributes

Irrespective of an individual’s specific background, the successful candidate will be:

• Entrepreneurial, proactive, and productive; someone who instinctively knows what needs to be done and rallies colleagues to get things accomplished; “rolls up the sleeves” and gets things done
• Bright – both insightful and creative, with strong problem-solving skills and pragmatic, with a practical, “real-world” sense of what is actually “do-able”. Possesses an affinity for data-driven insights to making decisions and creating a track record of demonstrable results
• Articulate and compelling in his/her oral and written communication skills; engaging and concise – with interpersonal “presence”; adaptable across executive, technical and Bain audiences
• Energetic, with drive, enthusiasm, and natural skills in relationship development; well-connected, with an extensive network of potentially relevant relationships
• Pragmatic with a practical, “real-world” sense of what is actually “do-able.” Will have a bias to approach problem solving in a structured way, and combining it with sound practical business judgment to arrive at realistic solutions 
• Able to forge strong people relationships at all levels
• A solid team player who's also an independent thinker
• A great colleague and teammate; passionate about the task at hand and fun to be around
• Able to self-manage time, balance across competing demands