I want you to just imagine something for a second.
Okay. Imagine waking up, pouring your coffee,
checking the news, and seeing that you have just
been named the absolute top CEO in America. That
is a pretty good morning. Right. And we aren't
talking about, you know, an award from some random
magazine or a panel of out -of -touch critics.
We were talking about Glassdoor. Oh, wow. Yeah.
In 2021, out of all the massive tech giants,
the global conglomerates, the flashy household
brands. The ones everybody knows. Exactly. Out
of all of them, the employees themselves, the
people actually doing the work, voted you into
that number one spot. That is wild. So the question
is, how do you get there? What is the actual
blueprint for that kind of universally respected?
leadership? It's a phenomenal question. And it
really gets right to the heart of what we're
going to explore today, because earning that
number one spot is never an accident. It certainly
doesn't happen overnight or just because you
have a charismatic personality. It requires a
highly specific, very rare blend of adaptability,
foresight and this ability to navigate incredibly
complex, volatile systems. Which brings us to
the subject of today's deep dive. We are looking
at a single heavily detailed source today, which
is the Wikipedia article on Rich Lesser. Right.
He's currently the global chair of Boston Consulting
Group, which is widely known as BCG, and he served
as their global CEO for nearly a decade before
stepping into his current role. And that makes
this a perfect case study for us because running
a firm like BCG means you are essentially the
consultant to the top executives in the world.
You are advising the advisors. Exactly. You aren't
just running a company. You are advising the
people who run the world's biggest companies.
Your product is literally business strategy.
Yes. So the mission of our deep dive today is
to really dissect the blueprint of modern executive
leadership. We aren't just recounting a biography
here. No, that would be boring. We want to take
a hard look. at how someone successfully navigates
a massive global firm through recessions, through
massive digital revolutions, and through unprecedented
global crises, all while keeping the people who
work for them highly motivated. It's a massive
undertaking. It really is. And welcome to the
conversation, by the way. We are so glad you
are joining us for this one because the mechanics
of how this level of success actually works are
just fascinating. They really are. And I think
to understand how someone operates at that highest
echelon of global business, we have to look at
where their worldview was formed. The origin
story. Right. The foundation of a strategist's
mindset is usually built long before they ever
set foot in a corporate boardroom. Let's start
right there. Our documentation shows that Lesser
grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania during the
1970s. Now, if you are familiar with American
industrial history. You know that specific place
and that specific time carry a massive amount
of weight. An enormous amount of weight. The
1970s in Pittsburgh was defined by severe systemic
economic hardship. This was the era of the great
steel industry collapse. We aren't just talking
about a temporary dip in the market. We are talking
about the complete. decimation of an industry
that was the absolute lifeblood of an entire
region. It's just gone. Hundreds of thousands
of jobs vanished, communities were fractured,
and a once booming economic engine basically
ground to a halt. You have to imagine how witnessing
that shapes a future turnaround strategist. Seeing
firsthand what happens when an industry fails
to adapt. Absolutely. If you grew up watching
giant, seemingly invincible corporations crumble
into rust simply because they couldn't or wouldn't
keep up. with changing times, you probably develop
a very healthy respect for innovation. Precisely.
It strips away the illusion of permanence. You
learn very early on that no organization is too
big to fail if it stops paying attention to the
world around it. It shifts your perspective from
assuming stability to constantly looking over
your shoulder for the next disruption. You realize
that adaptation isn't just a corporate buzzword.
It is a literal survival mechanism. Which...
perfectly sets up his academic path. He goes
to the University of Michigan and gets a bachelor's
degree, but he doesn't major in finance. No.
Or economics or business administration. He gets
a degree in chemical engineering and he graduates
summa cum laude. Impressive. And then he pivots.
He goes to Harvard Business School. gets his
MBA, and is named a Baker Scholar, which is the
highest academic honor you can get there. It
is a massive shift on paper, but if you look
closely, it is a very telling one. Going from
the hard sciences, specifically chemical engineering,
to the heights of business strategy isn't as
disconnected as it might seem to a casual observer.
Okay, let's unpack this. Sure. Because this is
one of my favorite connections in his story,
but I have to admit, I was a little skeptical
at first. Think about what chemical engineering
actually is. It's complex. It's the study of
how complex reactions happen at scale. You are
dealing with inputs, outputs, heat, pressure,
catalysts, incredibly complex systems that have
to be perfectly balanced to create a specific
result without the whole thing blowing up. But
chemicals follow strict physical rules. Human
beings in corporate markets are notoriously irrational.
So how does that engineering mindset actually
translate to a boardroom? That is the exact right
pushback to have. Humans are irrational, yes,
but organizations at scale actually function
very much like complex systems. An engineer doesn't
look at a massive problem in panic. An engineer
breaks the system down into its component parts,
identifies the bottlenecks or the friction points,
and designs a more efficient process. Oh, I see.
In corporate strategy, the inputs are capital
and talent, the pressure is the market competition,
and you are trying to catalyze growth at a massive
global scale. He is taking the analytical objective
systems thinking mindset of an engineer and applying
it to organizational design. And he actually
started his career doing the physical engineering
work. He started out at Procter & Gamble as a
product development engineer and group leader.
Right. He was in the trenches making physical
products work. It wasn't until 1988 that he joined
BCG as a consultant. And 1988 was a very different
time for consulting. That transition is where
he really begins to apply that systems thinking
to a much broader case. At BCG, he is no longer
just looking at how to manufacture consumer products.
He's looking at the whole picture. He is looking
at entire corporate structures across multiple
industries. He is learning how the global economy
connects. Let's track that climb, because he
doesn't just join BCG. He becomes instrumental
to its structure. From 2000 to 2009, he was the
head of the New York Metro office system. A huge
market. In 2006, he gets elected to the firm's
executive committee. And from 2009 to 2012, he
serves as BCG's chairman for North and South
America. His client work during this time was
heavily focused on strategy, operations, leadership,
and large -scale transformation. To give you
some industry context here, the management consulting
world is dominated by what's known as the Big
Three. McKinsey, BCG, and Bain. Right. Often
referred to as MBB. In this world, making partner
is notoriously difficult. It's a strict up or
out culture. You either get promoted or you are
asked to leave. A pressure. Extremely. So to
not only survive that environment, but to rise
to the executive committee and run the Americas
means you aren't just a good consultant. You
are an exceptional leader of highly intelligent,
highly demanding people. He was the person companies
called when they needed to completely overhaul
how they operated. He was doing the structural
engineering of massive corporations. But here's
where it gets really interesting. I found this
next detail incredibly impressive. According
to the timeline, Lesser played a pivotal role
in helping BCG become the only global management
consulting firm to grow strongly through the
2008 recession. What's fascinating here is the
sheer magnitude of that achievement when you
consider the environment. It was a nightmare.
Think back to 2008. The global financial system
was essentially melting down. Companies were
hemorrhaging money. Massive century old institutions
were collapsing overnight. And the immediate
reflex for almost every corporation on Earth
was to slash budgets in a panic. Right. And historically,
the very first budget they get slashed when a
company is bleeding cash is external consulting.
Right. The logic is. we can't afford to pay our
own employees, we definitely cannot afford expensive
strategy consultants. That is the prevailing
logic everywhere. It seems impossible to grow
a going bankrupt. Exactly. So for a major global
consulting firm to not just survive, but to grow
strongly during that specific window of time,
it requires incredibly countercyclical thinking.
Let's define that for a second. When we say countercyclical
thinking, we just mean having the guts and the
data to back it up, to invest and grow when the
rest of the economic cycle is shrinking and everyone
else is in full retreat, right? That's a great
way to put it. It means Lesser and his team were
able to convince terrified executives that in
the middle of a burning building, the one thing
you absolutely should not cut is the architect
who can help you rebuild. That's a great analogy.
But how do you actually do that? You have to
fundamentally pivot your value proposition. They
went to CEOs and essentially said. Wow. They
shifted from we can help you optimize your margins
to we can help you architect your survival. It
requires extreme resilience and a deep understanding
of crisis management, which brings up a great
question for you to think about as you listen
to this. When your own industry faces a severe
downturn, How do you pivot? Yeah. Where do you
find that one counter -cyclical area of growth
while everyone else is panicking? It is the defining
test of a leader. And navigating that 2008 crucible
successfully clearly proved something vital to
the rest of the BCG partnership. Because in May
2012, he was elected to succeed Hans -Paul Berkner
and became the global chief executive officer
of Boston Consulting Group. A top job. He held
that CEO role from 2013 all the way to 2021.
And this is where we see the systems engineer
fully take the helm. When he steps into the CEO
role, he isn't content to just maintain a highly
successful firm. He completely rewires it for
a new era. The metrics of his success during
this period are staggering. Truly. Under his
leadership, BCG more than doubled in size, growing
to over 22 ,000 employees. But even more impressive,
the firm tripled its revenue. Tripled? Tripling
revenue at a company that is already a massive
established global player is almost unheard of.
You don't do that just by working your existing
consultants harder. You do that by building entirely
new engines of growth. And we know exactly what
those new engines were. He fueled this massive
growth by heavily investing in digital capabilities
and advanced analytics. He understood that the
future of business wasn't just going to be about
traditional slide decks and qualitative boardroom
advice. It was going to be won by data. Data,
algorithms, and digital transformation. Now,
digital transformation is one of those phrases
that can sometimes just be a corporate buzzword.
But I love looking at these specific internal
units launched under his tenure because it shows
he wasn't just using buzzwords. He was building
serious infrastructure. First, there's BCG Digital
Ventures. This is described as a builder and
accelerator of digital businesses. Then there's
BCG Gamma, an analytics and machine learning
team. And finally, BCG Turn, which is a turnaround,
restructuring, and transformation unit. Let's
break down why these are so significant, because
this is the how behind tripling the revenue.
Consulting historically was about brilliant people
in suits delivering 100 -page reports. But Lesser
realized that a slide deck can't compete with
a machine learning algorithm. No, it can't. BCG
Gamma meant bringing in heavy -hitting data scientists,
coders, and AI experts. They weren't just advising
on data, they were building the models. BCG Digital
Ventures was essentially a venture incubator
inside a consulting firm. They were actively
helping legacy clients He transformed BCG from
a firm that tells you what you should do into
a firm that also brings the highly specialized
tools to help you actually build it. It's that
chemical engineer mindset, again, building the
functional systems to handle the new reality.
And then there is BCG Tern. Right, the restructuring
unit. The best way to think about Tern is to
use a medical analogy. Standard strategy consulting
is kind of like hiring a top -tier athletic trainer.
You're already healthy, but you want to shave
two seconds off your sprint time or optimize
your diet. You want to go from good to great.
BCG turn is like being wheeled into the emergency
room where the trauma surgeon has to stop the
bleeding before you lose the leg. That paints
a picture. It is high stakes, rapid intervention
restructuring for companies in deep distress.
By building these distinct units, he diversified
the firm's capabilities to meet entirely different
client needs. Exactly. If you want a triple revenue,
you have to offer entirely new, highly valuable
services that your clients might not have even
known they needed yet. But as we move into the
later years of his time as CEO, we see his focus
broaden significantly. He doesn't just stay inside
the corporate optimization bubble. He starts
stepping very visibly into the role of a global
citizen. This represents a major shift in the
paradigm of what it means to be a CEO in the
21st century. It is no longer just about maximizing
shareholder value or in a private partnership
like BCG, maximizing partner revenue. It becomes
about recognizing the deep interconnectedness
of global business, human society, and the environment.
Because systemic risks to the globe are systemic
risks to business. You cannot separate them anymore.
The documentation outlined several major initiatives
he spearheaded that go way beyond traditional
corporate strategy. He oversaw the launch of
the Center for Climate and Sustainability. He
also launched the Southern Communities Initiative.
Right. This was a major partnership between BCG,
PayPal, and Vista Equity Partners, specifically
aimed at advancing racial equity. These aren't
just public relations moves. These are massive
resource heavy structural commitments. Creating
a center for climate and sustainability acknowledges
that climate change is the single biggest variable
that will affect global supply chains, resource
scarcity and market stability in the coming decades.
Absolutely. And partnering with major financial
and tech players to address racial equity shows
an understanding that economic disparities are
deeply systemic issues that drag down the entire
economy. requiring serious, coordinated corporate
action to solve. His influence expanded right
alongside these initiatives. He became the chief
advisor to the World Economic Forum's Alliance
of CEO Climate Leaders. He was a member of the
WEF's International Business Council. A lot of
global reach. He accelerated BCG's investments
in social impact through deep partnerships with
the World Food Program, Save the Children, and
the World Wildlife Fund. He was also on the board
of directors of the Business Roundtable, where
he took on the massive responsibility of chairing
the CEO COVID -19 Task Force. You can clearly
see the threat. From the 2008 financial crisis
all the way to the COVID -19 pandemic, he continuously
positions himself and his firm at the very center
of global crisis management. He is operating
at the absolute intersection of business strategy
and global survival. But stepping onto that global
stage also means navigating the incredibly complex
and often fraught world of politics. Yeah. And
we have a specific documented timeline regarding
this. Our source states that in December 2016,
Lesser joined a business forum assembled by then
President -elect Donald Trump. The purpose of
this forum was to provide strategic and policy
advice on economic issues. Right. The timeline
then notes that in August 2017, Lesser and the
other CEOs decided to disband the group. He is
also currently a member of the president's export
council. Yes. Now, I need to pause here for a
second. It is really important to note, and just
to be completely clear with you listening right
now, we are absolutely not taking any political
sides here. Not at all. Whether left wing or
right wing, we are not endorsing any political
viewpoints, nor are we making any judgments about
Donald Trump, the advisory councils themselves,
or any of the political administrations mentioned.
We are strictly. 100 percent. Just tracking the
factual timeline of Rich Lesser's professional
career as it is contained in the source material
provided to us. And that is an important distinction
to make, because if we connect this to the bigger
picture, what we are really looking at is the
evolving and often precarious role of the modern
executive. Modern CEOs increasingly find themselves
at the complex intersection of economics and
highly polarizing global politics. If you go
back 30 or 40 years, a CEO could. Right. If you
are running a massive global entity. Every political
decision, every tariff, every trade policy and
every international agreement directly impacts
your business, your supply chain and your clients.
You also have to have a seat at the table just
to know how to advise the companies relying on
you to see around the corners. Exactly. When
a president elect or a sitting administration
forms an economic advisory council, regardless
of which political party is in power top, business
leaders are almost always called upon because
they're the ones who actually control the levers
of the economy. They're the ones. hundreds of
thousands of people. That makes sense. But as
the timeline shows with the disbanding of that
specific group in 2017, that proximity to politics
is a very difficult tightrope to walk. CEOs have
to balance their civic duty to advise on economic
policy with the social, ethical and political
expectations of their global workforce, their
diverse client base and the broader public. It
is a highly delicate, heavily scrutinized balancing
act of societal diplomacy. It really is a completely
different job description than it used to be.
You aren't just a business operator anymore.
You're expected to be a statesman, a crisis manager,
and an economic advisor on a global scale. And
the weight of that level of responsibility is
immense. Which brings us to the present day.
Just to round out the personal details provided
in our background material, Lesser is married
and has three children. And as we mentioned at
the very beginning, as of 2021, after an incredibly
eventful and transformative run, he transitioned
out of the CEO role, became the global chair
of BCG. A huge legacy. So what does this all
mean? When we look at this entire blueprint we've
laid out today, from witnessing the collapse
of the steel industry in Pittsburgh, to applying
chemical engineering systems thinking to corporate
structures, to surviving the 2008 financial meltdown,
tripling a massive firm's revenue through heavy
digital innovation, and navigating global climate
initiatives and political task forces, the main
takeaway is incredibly clear. Lesser's career
shows us that modern success is absolutely not
about defending the status quo. It is about engineering
continuous, deliberate transformation. I couldn't
agree more. The organizations and the leaders
that survive over the long haul aren't the ones
who try to build the thickest walls to keep change
out. They are the ones who build the most adaptable
internal systems to harness that change. And
this raises an important question, a final thought,
freedom all over as we wrap up our discussion
today. Let's hear it. Given how much time Rich
Lesser spent on things like climate alliances,
international COVID task forces and presidential
advisory boards, has the fundamental definition
of a CEO prominently changed? As we look to the
future, are the top business leaders going to
be hired more for their capacity for societal
diplomacy and their ability to manage unprecedented
global crises than their ability to simply optimize
a supply chain or balance a spreadsheet? It's
a fascinating question. And looking at the blueprint
we just unpacked, I think we might already know
the answer. The job has changed. and the leaders
have to change with it. Thank you so much for
joining us and exploring this with us today.
We love taking these deep dives with you, and
we will catch you on the next one.