Apart from a roaring business, Maceda has other reasons to feel good about — not just the firm he leads but his career. He is the first Asian to head Bain, ranked together with McKinsey and Boston Consulting Group as the “MBB” of the hallowed world of management consulting. He is the eldest son of the late Ernesto Maceda of the Philippines, a former senate president. He chose to join Bain in 1988 over a competing offer from General Electric, one of the most powerful US conglomerates whose CEO then was the legendary Jack Welch.
The way businesses function has changed much over the last couple of years, no thanks to the pandemic. Nevertheless, Bain’s mission has stayed true: To dish out the best advice it can to its clients, no matter how that is delivered. “If anything, the need by clients for good consulting partnership to help to achieve their mission has gotten higher,” says Emmanuel “Manny” Maceda, CEO of Bain & Company.
A congruence of factors — from the uncertainty of the overall business environment, the rapid changes in digitalisation and the task of dealing with the pandemic — has created such unexpectedly strong demand for the services of Bain. The firm is riding on its highest growth period in more than two years. Its consultants are all booked up that the firm has declined work for the last couple of years. In short, Bain could not take on new assignments unless it hired more. “We have a supply-led problem,” says Maceda in an interview with The Edge Singapore.
