Meet the leaders of MBB, the consulting giants advising the world’s most powerful CEOs

• Meet the leaders of McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group.

• MBB firms advise companies and governments in areas like strategy, mergers, and AI adoption.

• The firms’ leaders focus on a global roster of clients and oversee tens of thousands of employees.

You might not know their names, but they likely have the ear of many powerful CEOs.

They’re the leaders of what are widely considered the most prestigious strategy consulting firms: McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group, which are collectively referred to as the Big 3, or MBB.

MBB firms are often tough places to land a job, and their consultants are some of the most sought-after in the industry.

They’re the people tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple — as well as government agencies — turn to for advice on things like mergers and acquisitions, business strategy, and AI adoption. MBB consultants have also gone on to lead some of the world’s biggest companies.

So, who’s leading the nearly hundred thousand employees across these influential firms?

Here’s a look at the leaders at McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.

Bob Sternfels is the global managing partner and chair of the board of directors at McKinsey, which is headquartered in New York City and has offices around the world. The firm employs about 40,000 people.

Senior partners first elected Sternfels in 2021 and re-elected him to a second three-year term in 2024.

Sternfels grew up in California’s Central Valley and has worked at McKinsey since 1994, when he joined the San Francisco office. Prior to becoming global managing partner, he led McKinsey’s client capabilities around the world. Before that, he ran the operations practice for the Americas and the private equity and principal investors practice globally.

He studied economics and history at Stanford University, where he also played Division I varsity water polo. Sternfels has said on several occasions that his sports background has influenced his leadership style. He got his master’s in politics, philosophy, and economics at the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Sternfels recently told Business Insider that humor and vulnerability are some of his key leadership tools. He also said he likes to take small groups on walks when visiting McKinsey offices because it can help folks open up.

“A little levity — a joke at your own expense, a lighthearted moment — can go a long way toward building trust, breaking down barriers, and democratizing the team room,” he said.

When he was elected global managing partner, the firm said Sternfels was often described as organized, proactive, and a systems thinker.

Under his leadership, McKinsey has navigated the AI revolution, launching QuantumBlack, the firm’s AI consulting arm.

During his tenure, McKinsey has also faced scrutiny for earlier advising Purdue Pharma on how to boost sales of OxyContin. Sternfels testified before Congress in 2022, and the firm has paid about $1.6 billion in recent years to settle legal claims.

McKinsey has also recently reduced its staff by 10%, BI reported in May. The firm said at the time that the reorganization was in part due to AI driving new levels of efficiency and that it planned to hire thousands of new consultants in 2025.

Christophe De Vusser is the worldwide managing partner, CEO, and chairman of Bain & Company, which is based in Boston and has about 19,000 employees globally. The company was founded in 1973.

Before taking on the role in July 2024 and moving to New York, De Vusser was a partner based in Brussels, where he led Bain’s private equity practice for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. De Vusser is the first European to hold the role of worldwide managing partner and CEO, the company said in a 2024 press release.

De Vusser, who first joined Bain in 2000, began his career at the consumer products giant Procter & Gamble, maker of Tide detergent and Crest toothpaste. De Vusser has master’s degrees in civil engineering and multilingual business communication from the University of Ghent, according to Bain.

De Vusser’s rise to the top role comes as the firm’s business is evolving because of tech advances. In December, Bain said tech and “AI-enabled revenue” accounted for 30% of the company’s business in 2024. Bain expects that revenue to climb to 50% in the coming years.

In a Bain podcast, De Vusser said the firm’s clients are grappling with massive amounts of change, including around artificial intelligence. It’s a technology, he said, that’s still in its early days.

“It will continue to mature at immense speeds, we believe, in the coming decades,” he said on the podcast.

De Vusser has also written about AI. In a recent LinkedIn post, he pointed to Bain research that found fewer than 20% of companies had “meaningfully scaled” generative AI. The reason, he said, is that many organizations tend to view AI “primarily as a technology initiative rather than using it as a catalyst to fundamentally reimagine their business.”

For organizations to get it right, De Vusser wrote, they need to simplify key processes, use technology so that it fits with strategic goals, and enable workers to use AI.

BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer described his leadership style in a video produced by the company: “Values-led, empathetic, transparent, curious,” he says.

The firm elected Schweizer for a second term this year. BCG says its reelection process is “unique.” All 1,500 managing directors and partners have an equal vote when choosing a CEO.

Schweizer, who first became CEO in 2021, joined BCG in 1997, according to his biography on the firm’s website. He holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin’s McCombs School of Business and a Bachelor’s degree from the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany.

During his tenure, BCG has grown in several areas, including the firm’s investments in AI — which accounted for bout 20% of the firm’s total revenue in 2024 and are expected to grow this year, according to a press release from BCG.

Schweizer has also navigated some controversies during his tenure, including two recent projects related to the Gaza conflict. BCG backed out of a multimillion-dollar American-Israeli project to deliver aid in Gaza that was marked by violence. And two senior BCG leaders were demoted for their role in another project that modeled the potential cost of relocating Palestinians from the territory.

One of the firm’s biggest challenges moving forward, Schweizer says in the company interview, will be helping clients embed AI.

“To seize the opportunity, our clients need to fundamentally redefine operating models, value chains, decision-making, and end-to-end processes, while protecting themselves from associated risks, such as info security,” he said.

Another major focus for BCG is sustainability, he said.

“Companies and governments will have to get serious about decarbonization extremely fast: setting the right targets, reduction mechanisms, metrics, and enforcement,” Schweizer said.

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