BCG Leadership

Hans-Paul Bürkner

President & Chief Executive Officer

Hans-Paul Bürkner has been president and chief executive officer since 2003. He joined the firm in 1981 and was a member of the teams that opened BCG's Düsseldorf (1982) and Frankfurt (1991) offices. Before becoming the firm's first chief executive officer from Europe, he was head of BCG's global Financial Services practice.

During his 25 years at BCG, he has counted among his clients many of the world's leading financial institutions. He has worked with them to redefine the competitive landscapes in their segments, spearheaded major global expansion initiatives, and transformed formerly-public enterprises into leading private institutions.

Hans-Paul studied economics, business administration, and Chinese, receiving a Diplom from the University of Bochum, an M.A. from Yale University, and a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford.

Today he is based in both Frankfurt and New York, and travels extensively among BCG's global offices.

John Clarkeson

Chairman Emeritus

In his four decades with BCG, John has filled a number of key roles on the firm's executive leadership team. He became president of the firm in 1985 and its chief executive officer one year later. He served in that capacity until 1998, when he became chairman of the board. From 2004 -May 2007, John served as cochairman with former president and chief executive officer Carl Stern.

Upon his retirement from the firm in 2007, he was named chairman emeritus and continues to work out of our Boston office.

Outside of his work with BCG, John serves as a director of the Cabot Corporation and the National Bureau of Economic Research. He is a trustee of Educational Testing Service, the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, and Wellesley College and is on the board of INSEAD.

He received an A.B. magna cum laude in history from Harvard College, where he was a Harvard National Scholar, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

Michel Frédeau

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Michel works in our Paris office and leads BCG's People Team which guides how the firm recruits, retains, and develops its consultants and staff worldwide. As a member of the Energy practice, he has served as the global leader of the gas topic and the coordinator of the firm's energy and utilities work in France and Belgium.

Since joining BCG in 1985, Michel has led numerous strategic, organizational, and business strategy projects for major oil companies and European utilities. He has also worked extensively in consumer goods and retail, focusing on the areas of food, household products, department stores, variety stores, and other retailers.

Before assuming his current role, Michel led the Paris office for seven years. He is a graduate from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Statistique et de l'Administration Economique and holds an M.B.A. from the Wharton Business School.

Steve Gunby

Chairman—North & South America

Steve is a member of the Consumer and Retail practices and a coleader of their work on the East Coast of the U.S. In addition to serving as the chairman of North and South America he is also a senior partner in our Washington, D.C. office and member of the Executive Committee.

While at BCG, Steve has led several major change-management efforts for clients. Beyond his work for the firm, he serves on the board of trustees of the Committee for Economic Development (CED), a nonprofit organization.

Steve holds a B.A. with distinction in economics and government from Cornell University and a master's degree in public and private management from the Yale School of Organization and Management. He holds a J.D. from Yale Law School, where he was editor of The Yale Law Journal.

Martin Hecker

Head of Global Functions

Martin is a partner and managing director in BCG's Cologne office. Before assuming his current role, he was a worldwide segment leader for the Information Technology practice and head of the Information Technology practice for Germany, Austria, and Greece. Much of his client work has focused on strategy, organizational effectiveness, and process reengineering.

While he now spends most of his time leading BCG's efforts to strengthen the firm's global functions, he also continues to serve a number of key clients.
From 2000 to 2004, Martin took a leave from BCG and built one of Latin America's largest IT consulting firms. He served as CEO of the firm, managing an organization of approximately 1,200 people. Martin holds a master's degree in economics from Cologne University.

Dieter Heuskel

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Dieter is Chairman of BCG Germany and a member of the Executive Committee. He joined BCG in 1980 in Munich and moved to Düsseldorf two years later. From 1992 to 1997 he headed our Düsseldorf office. He also led the first Strategy Practice Initative from 1995 to 1997.

His client work has covered a broad range of topics and industries. It has featured work on strategy and portfolio development with conglomerates and on the organization of cultural change. He also has experience in driving business development and in supporting and coaching family-owned companies.

Dieter holds graduate and doctoral degrees in economics from Universität Bonn.

Rich Hutchinson

Partner & Managing Director

Rich joined BCG in 1993 and is a partner in our Atlanta office. As chief of staff, he supports the Executive Committee, the Operating Committee, and the chief executive officer in developing and executing their agendas. He helps drive high-priority issues, address strategic challenges and opportunities, and manage critical initiatives across geographies and practices.

Rich's primary focus in his consulting work has been consumer goods. He has served as the topic leader for pricing in North America and an active member of BCG's Client Service Initiative. He has experience in a variety of functional areas including innovation, marketing, pricing and operations.

Rich holds an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School and a bachelor's degree in economics with honors and distinction from Stanford University.

Rich Lesser

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Rich is the leader of BCG's New York office and is a core member of the Health Care and Consumer practice areas. He also heads our relationship with a leading pharmaceutical company.

Rich's project experience includes work on strategy and corporate development, as well as several major organizational—and operational—change efforts. He has recently worked on a large-scale postmerger integration, brand and channel strategies, alliance development, marketing and sales improvement, and e-business strategy.

Prior to joining the firm in 1988, Rich worked as a process development engineer and group leader at Procter & Gamble, where he led several projects aimed at reducing product costs and introducing new products. He has also worked in synthetic fuels R&D at Westinghouse Electric and BP.

Rich holds an M.B.A. with high distinction from Harvard Business School, where he was designated a Baker scholar. He earned a bachelor's degree summa cum laude in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Bjørn Matre

Chairman—Europe & Middle East

Bjørn originally began working for BCG in Germany, and was later part of the team that started our Nordic Practice. In addition to his duties as European regional chair, he also serves as senior partner in our Oslo office and is a member of the Executive Committee.

He has worked across a range of industries—and has extensive experience from leading large scale change programs across Europe. Today, Bjørn's client work is often focused on supporting senior management on issues around overall direction and governance of their corporations.

Bjørn holds a law degree from the University of Bergen Law School and a Master of Science in business administration from the Norwegian School of Economics and Business Administration.

Antonella Mei-Pochtler

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Antonella is BCG's worldwide Brand topic leader and member of the worldwide Media practice. For over ten years Antonella has organized the "Brand Club," the top branding and media focused conference for CEOs in Germany. She works out of our Munich and Vienna offices and is a member of BCG's Executive Committee and of the European Management Team in charge of European Marketing.

In addition to her project work, Antonella is a coinitiator of the school project business@school. She also leads other BCG social impact activities, including the German Bone Marrow Donor Center (DKMS) as well as Europe's 500 – Entrepreneurs for Growth, the European association of fast growing companies. Since 2003, she writes a biweekly column in the leading Austrian daily Der Standard. A selection of these essays focused on the art and science of strategy and leadership has recently been published in her book Acupuncture for Management.

Antonella studied business administration at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. She earned her doctorate at Università degli Studi di Roma and holds an M.B.A. from INSEAD, Fontainebleau.

Takashi Mitachi

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Takashi Mitachi, who joined BCG in 1993, is cohead of BCG's Japan operation. He is a core member of the Strategy, and Marketing and Sales practice areas, with deep expertise in corporate strategy, group management, and leadership team development.

He has written two books—both have sold over 100,000 copies in Asia. The BCG Way: The Art of Strategic Insight, focuses on how to develop capabilities to generate strategic insight beyond widely-known concepts and industry rule-of-thumbs, and Capabilities to Apply Knowledge describes how to integrate knowledge and skills to get real managerial impact. Takashi also regularly appears on a well-known business news program which airs nightly on one of Japan's television stations.

Before joining the firm, Takashi worked for 14 years at Japan Airlines, where his positions included manager of the corporate planning department at the head office in Tokyo. He holds an M.B.A. with high distinction (Baker Scholar) from Harvard Business School and a B.A. in American literature from Kyoto University.

Ron Nicol

Global Leader—Practice Areas

Ron serves as global leader of the practice areas, leader of the Technology and Communications practice, and is a member of the Executive Committee. He works out of the Dallas office, which he opened in 1994. Over the last 20 years, he has also served as the global leader of the Organization practice and chairman of North and South America.

Since joining BCG in 1987, Ron's focus has been telecommunications and airlines, and he has worked on major business transformations with a number of Fortune 50 companies. Before coming to BCG, Ron held senior positions with Babcock and Wilcox and was a U.S. naval officer, serving aboard a nuclear ballistic missile submarine and teaching nuclear engineering.

Ron received a B.S. in physics with honors from the United States Naval Academy, where he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor Society Prize for outstanding engineering work. He also has an M.B.A. from Duke University, where he was named a Fuqua Scholar.

Michael Silverstein

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Michael joined The Boston Consulting Group in 1980 and works in our Chicago office. He is the partner responsible for BCG's Client Service Initiative and is a member of the Executive Committee. Previously, he led our Consumer practice.

During his 26 years with BCG, Michael has worked with many global companies. He is an expert in consumer behavior, helping large companies improve their value propositions and retail brands. In addition to his client work, Michael has cowritten Trading Up, a best-selling book published by Penguin Putnam in 2003 that received the Berry Prize from the American Marketing Association for the best book published on marketing. His new book, Treasure Hunt, was published in May 2006 and has received critical acclaim.

Before joining BCG, Michael was a reporter for United Press International. He holds an M.B.A. with distinction from the Harvard Business School and a B.A. in economics and history from Brown University.

Debbie Simpson

Chief Financial Officer

Debbie is responsible for leading BCG's global finance function and for financial matters at BCG. Before assuming her current role, Debbie was the partner responsible for tax, treasury, and finance. She has been with the firm since 2001. Prior to joining BCG, Debbie was the PricewaterhouseCoopers lead tax partner serving BCG since 1990.

Debbie worked at PwC for 16 years, joining the firm immediately after graduating from MIT Sloan School of Management in 1985. She had previously earned a degree in engineering at Duke University. At PwC, she ran the Northeast region's international tax group for several years, and she served on PwC's U.S. board of directors in 2000.

Janmejaya Sinha

Senior Partner & Managing Director

Janmejaya leads our India practice. His primary focus is financial services and Janmejaya has worked with clients in the United States, the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia and India on issues encompassing strategy, corporate governance, risk, operations, and organization.

Janmejaya writes regularly for the Indian press and speaks frequently on a wide variety of subjects in different industry forums like Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Indian Banks Association (IBA), etc. He is regularly asked to join committees formed by the RBI, IBA, and CII and currently sits on CII's banking committee, services council, and is part of IBA's working group to review the Banking Regulation Act.

Before becoming a consultant, Janmejaya worked for ten years with the Reserve Bank of India across various departments. He has a Ph.D. from Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs; a B.A. and an M.A. in economics from Clare College, Cambridge University; and a B.A. and an M.A. in history from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University.

Carl Stern

Chairman of the Board

Over the past three decades, Carl has served in a number of leadership roles, culminating in his tenure as president and chief executive officer from 1998 until 2003.

His professional practice has focused on helping clients develop competitive strategies for individual businesses and reshaping corporate portfolios and organizations along capability lines. Most of his client work has been global in scope. It has focused on the consumer packaged goods, financial services, and industrial sectors.

Carl has written numerous BCG Perspectives and is a frequent speaker at management forums around the world. He is actively involved in the firm's Strategy practice and is based in our Chicago office.

Carl has an M.B.A. from the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, where he was first in his class, and a B.A. in economics cum laude from Harvard College.

John Wong

Chairman—Asia Pacific

John is a member of the firm's Consumer and Health Care practices. He has written extensively about the opportunities and challenges of doing business in China.

In addition to his role as chairman of Asia Pacific, he is a senior partner in our Hong Kong office and a member of the Executive Committee.

John holds a B.S. in chemical engineering with first-class honors from Imperial College in London, an M.S. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.