Lifetime Achievement Award
Antonella Mei-Pochtler
Senior Partner
The Boston Consulting Group
Antonella Mei-Pochtler, a Senior Partner based in Vienna, Austria, is one of BCG's most senior female leaders and one of Europe's most high-profile business women. She joined the profession right out of business school, after a short stint in commodity trading.
"That work experience actually convinced me that I should look for a combination of conceptual and analytical work that would also leverage my interpersonal and creative skills," Mei-Pochtler says. "And voila! Strategy consulting seemed the perfect match."
Indeed, they were. Since joining BCG in 1984, Mei-Pochtler's "perfect match" has led to numerous leadership roles within the firm, including serving on the Executive Committee and the European Management Team. For many years, she headed BCG's Global Marketing Committee and now leads the firm's Media and Branding practices globally.
"I pride myself on having been a catalyst for change at some of my media clients, but the real kudos go to my clients, especially the management teams of these companies," she says. "I enjoy changing the trajectory of companies by working closely with people who really want to make an impact. I especially thrive on the hard, challenging nuts to crack, as they need a special collective effort to be solved. And I never take no for an answer."
In addition, she has played a key role in transforming the firm's marketing strategy, including the launch of bcgperspectives.com, the firm's publishing platform. In fact, changing the way the entire firm communicates with its clients via Perspectives and other platforms is one of her proudest accomplishments at BCG. The other, she says, is an understanding for psychological/behavioral elements as an additional foundation of strategy, through the Mind Discovery methodology.
Of course, both of those pale in comparison to the achievement of having a happy family for 25 years, "which is actually more the achievement of the rest of the family than my own," she says.
For well over a decade, she has organized the "Brand Club," the top branding and media-focused conference for CEOs in Germany. In addition, she is co-creator of Europe's 500, the European association of fast-growing companies. In 2008, Consulting magazine named her one of the "Top 25" most influential consultants. A career of accomplishment has earned Mei-Pochtler the recognition of a Lifetime Achievement Award as one of the Women Leaders of Consulting.
"In my early years it was certainly a bit more challenging to be taken seriously, but I never saw that as a problem. I ignored it. Later, I really thought that being a woman in consulting is sometimes an advantage… The advantage of being different! Never take away my fragmentation; it has some disadvantages, of course, but it is the humus for creativity."
What does winning the Women Leaders in Consulting award mean to you?
"This award means a great deal to me. In these intense and volatile times, it is especially important to pause, look back, enjoy what has been achieved, and reflect on the learnings for the future. I would have never realized my accomplishments without the help of many strong colleagues and teams working with
me through all these years."
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