When Laura Miles first stepped foot in Bain & Company’s Atlanta office decades ago, little did she know that she would eventually become the company’s first C-suite executive based in the city.
Miles started at the global consulting firm’s Atlanta office in 1998 after an internship the previous year, and slowly climbed her way up the ranks. In July, she was named the company’s chief client officer and global head of industries.
She grew up in Wisconsin, eventually making her way to the East Coast for college. After a brief stint in investment banking, Miles went back to school for a master’s in business administration before joining the firm.
Boston-based Bain has offices in 40 countries and about 500 employees in Atlanta. It counts Coca-Cola as a client and OpenAI as a partner. The consulting firm’s “clients come to us with their toughest problems they can’t solve internally, and they need expertise and other skills,” Miles told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
She sat down with the AJC to discuss her career, being the only woman in a roomful of men and how Bain is approaching artificial intelligence.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Q: When you were stepping into the Bain office in 1998, did you think that you would be here 26 years later?
A: No. I didn’t know much about consulting, quite frankly, when I did the summer internship or after, but I thought it would be a good place to launch a career and try it for a couple years and then see what I wanted to do permanently. But I fell in love with it and the work we do with our clients. And the wonderful thing about consulting is that you can have many careers within a career.
We all start as generalist consultants, learning really across different industries and different problem types. So, I didn’t really start to specialize until I was close to being a partner and at that time, I started doing more mergers and acquisitions and consumer products. So I did both of those, led our M&A practice for seven years in the Americas, and then globally. And then turned that role over to be the managing partner of the Atlanta office, which I loved.
Q: Now as chief client officer and global head of industries, what does that entail?
A: My job is to make sure the client stays at the center of everything we do.
We have a high aspiration that we create such high levels of value that we set new standards of excellence with our clients and with ourselves. And so what that means to me practically is making sure we’re bringing them the best solutions, the best ways of working with them to help them solve their problems or capitalize on opportunities.
The Global Head of Industries piece is we have nine global industries … My job is basically coordinating those.
There’s a lot of what you learn, for example, in financial services that may be relevant in retail, or vice versa; what you learn in technology that is relevant to our consumer products clients, et cetera. So, making sure they have the best solutions, but also that they’re learning from each other and we can share across industries.
Q: And what are you hoping to achieve in this role?
A: The biggest one right now is really around AI. So, technology and AI-enabled revenue this year is 30% of Bain’s business.
But in the next year, we think that’s going to be 50%, so it’s a big increase. And so what that means then is our own folks need to get upskilled and cross-trained, we need different types of talent.
AI is just having such a profound impact on all of our industries and clients … There’s very few that I can think of that aren’t talking about it right now. And it’s not clear where the technology is going, how fast, which ones are just going to stay as fun use cases versus actually profoundly change how you do business. And so, sorting through all of that and making sure our clients stay at the cutting edge. That’s why we think it’s going to grow because it’s just top of mind for all the executives.
Q: And as part of your career, you were also on Bain’s board of directors. What was that experience like, especially with the dearth of women on corporate boards?
A: Bain, I feel like, has always been super inclusive for women. So that role, I would say, didn’t stand out to me. But you do find yourself in client meetings oftentimes with a roomful of men and that’s something that you learn that there’s strengths to it and not just weaknesses.
I think a lot of times, women have a lot of strengths in connecting with other humans and other ways, but you can use those strengths to actually help your clients and things like that. But the Bain board itself to me was great because I got a broader exposure to Bain before taking on this role, just about all the different issues running the company, not just working with our clients. So that to me was great from a career development standpoint.
When I was first promoted to partner, I was part time for six years, which I loved. So, I spent a day a week at home with the kids but was still able to grow my professional career.
I grew up with my mom and my brother, and she worked her whole life. So, I never considered not working. But I also wanted to be very engaged in my kids’ lives. And so to me, that was actually one of the things that attracted me to Bain way before I even was thinking about having kids was that they allowed that sort of flexibility. I did want to be engaged. I wanted to go to the park with them a day [a week]. I wanted to know their friends. I wanted to go to their sports. And so, it allowed me to do both.
Q: Twenty-six years of experience, what advice would you have given to your younger self for what your career was going to be?
A: Being authentic is OK. You know, you see a lot of different role models and to your point, they’re not always your gender or from your state or your high school. And so, I think at the beginning you try to fit a mold that you think the success ... looks like. But what I found over time is when I’m just myself, it works.
I know some of my strengths are my weaknesses, but that’s OK, that’s sort of what makes me who I am. I think if I if I had said it’s OK to just be more authentic, I would put less pressure on myself, less stress.
Laura Miles
Age: 52
Education: B.A. in economics and psychology from Duke University; MBA from the University of Virginia
Family: Married with two sons, 19 and 16
Resides: Atlanta
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