At the top of the management consultancy Boston Consulting there is a change of the guard.

After nine years in the executive chair, the American Rich Lesser will give up his post as scheduled in October.

The Boston Consulting Group will in future be managed by Christoph Schweizer, the previous European head.

Tillmann Neuscheler

Editor in business.

  • Follow I follow

    According to information from the FAZ, the roughly 1,500 partners agreed on the German.

    Christoph Schweizer has worked for BCG for 23 years, some of them in New York.

    He currently works from Munich, where he lives with his wife and three children.

    Studied Swiss business administration at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Koblenz and at the University of Texas in Austin.

    Christoph Schweizer becomes the second German to head the Boston Consulting Group.

    His predecessor, Rich Lesser, has been the global head of the Boston Consulting Group since 2013.

    He was re-elected twice by the partners.

    The trained chemical engineer from Pittsburgh has to give up the post now because the internal rules allow a maximum of three three-year terms of office.

    Lesser will change to the post of chairman in future.  

    During his tenure, the consultants' business developed splendidly - in many years sales have grown by double digits. Overall, the consulting firm's sales tripled during his tenure to around $ 8.6 billion a year. The number of employees has more than doubled to 22,000 around the globe. The development in recent years was mainly driven by the digital transformation, in which many managers seek the help of consultants.

    During Lesser's tenure, BCG founded several subsidiaries, such as “BCG Digital Ventures”, a consulting unit that aims to help large companies develop new digital business models. The subsidiary "BCG Gamma" specializes in the recovery of data treasures with the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The takeover of the German purchasing consultancy "Inverto" also took place under the direction of Rich Lesser.

    Before Lesser joined the Boston Consulting Group, he worked in product development at the consumer goods manufacturer Procter & Gamble.

    After joining BCG in 1988, he rose quickly.

    From 2000 to 2009 he headed the BCG office in New York, then headed the entire American business for a few years before he was elected to the global head of the consulting company in May 2012 as the successor to the German Hans-Paul Bürkner.

    BCG was founded in 1963 by the American Bruce Henderson and is now the second largest strategy consultancy in the world after McKinsey.

    The South Tyrolean Matthias Tauber has been managing the German business for two years.