#3. John Donahoe, 39
Worldwide Managing Partner/Bain & Company
Sometime last fall, John Donahoe remembers having a conversation that would help lay the groundwork for Bain's single largest financial investment since the creation of Bain Capital more than 15 years earlier.
After a week of meetings with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, and top Internet executives such as E-Bay CEO Meg Whitman, Donahoe placed a call to Bain Chairman Orit Gadiesh, who had been meeting with a number of CEOs in Europe.
"What was fascinating is that the emerging point of view in both Silicon Valley and Europe was highly consistent, and this gave us the confidence to move aggressively and with a great deal of speed," says Donahoe, recalling how the firm made the decision to become an equal partner in a venture with Kleiner Perkins, and the managing partners of Texas Pacific Group. The joint venture, known as eVolution, is today specifically focused on helping global companies build their e-businesses.
"Now we can go after the sweet spot, where incumbent global players can leverage their assets, their brands and their customer relationships, and combine their economies of scale," explains Donahoe, who says the venture is innovative not only because of its focus, nor the partners involved, but because of the speed with which Bain helped conceive and establish it.
Now, as Bain consults with the top brass of global clients about the ways of the Web, Texas Pacific can help those clients realign their financial structures, while Kleiner Perkins and its portfolio of companies ties in the cutting edge technology.
For Donahoe, eVolution is but one of many Internet-related initiatives he has now helped nurture and evangelize throughout the firm's hierarchy. As the firm continues to fatten its New Economy credentials, few doubt that another Internet investment cannot be far away.
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