Bill Bain (consultant)

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This article is about the consultant. For other uses of this name, see Bill Bain (disambiguation).

William "Bill" Bain II is a management consultant, known for his role as one of the founders of the management consultancy that bears his name, Bain & Company.

Prior to founding Bain & Company, Bill Bain was a Vice President at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG). He founded Bain & Company in 1973, along with 6 other former partners of BCG.

Born in Johnson City, Tennessee, to a food wholesaler, Bain attended East Tennessee State College for two years before transferring to Vanderbilt University. He graduated in 1959 with a degree in history, married and a father. He was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship for an advanced degree in history, but did not accept it. He instead elected to join a steel fabricating company. He returned to Vanderbilt in 1960 as a development officer. During this time, he met Bruce Henderson, the founder of the Boston Consulting Group. After meeting Henderson, Bain chose to join BCG.

In 1973, Bain resigned from BCG to start his own strategy consulting firm. Bain quickly recruited Black & Decker and Texas Instruments, two BCG clients, as his own clients. Bain's new company diverged from other consulting firms of the time by focusing on shorter, more specific assignments. He also sought to develop close relations with the companies, helping to devise strategy and implement it. He also promised not to represent more than one client per industry.