BCG X PA AI Strategy & Portfolio Director

Locations: Boston | London

Who We Are

Boston Consulting Group partners with leaders in business and society to tackle their most important challenges and capture their greatest opportunities. BCG was the pioneer in business strategy when it was founded in 1963. Today, we help clients with total transformation - inspiring complex change, enabling organizations to grow, building competitive advantage, and driving bottom-line impact.

To succeed, organizations must blend digital and human capabilities. Our diverse, global teams bring deep industry and functional expertise and a range of perspectives to spark change. BCG delivers solutions through leading-edge management consulting along with technology and design, corporate and digital ventures - and business purpose. We work in a uniquely collaborative model across the firm and throughout all levels of the client organization, generating results that allow our clients to thrive.

What You'll Do

The AI Strategy & Portfolio Snr Manager/Director owns the vision, prioritization, and governance of a portfolio of agentic assets, primarily from a cross-PA perspective – bringing together key stakeholders across PA offers/topics and ensuring complementarity with PA offers powered by BCG X (moonshots), many of which include AI assets. The role translates business priorities into a differentiated and actionable AI product portfolio that creates value at both PA and firm level.

The AI Strategy & Portfolio Snr Manager/Director reports to the Global PA Product Strategy Lead (PSL), who is working directly with BCG Chief Product Officer and key stakeholders from the Practice Areas (PAs) and from X.

The CPO and PSL will establish a team of multiple portfolio roles, with various seniority levels. All portfolio roles share the same governance framework and collaborate to drive consistency, modularity and reuse across the firm.

This role is deliberately market driven. The role's scope and mandate will be reviewed annually to reflect potential shifts in the competitive landscape, firm strategy, and the evolving AI product needs - ensuring BCG's portfolio leadership remains relevant and ahead of the curve.

What You'll Do

The scope of the role will evolve as the organization matures. This position requires a startup mindset and the ability to continuously adapt and refine roles as needed, and involves -without being limited to - the following:

Portfolio Strategy & Governance

Define the portfolio vision and strategic guardrails for all agentic assets under your remit, maintaining constant alignment across portfolio roles and with PA key stakeholders (especially, PA AI leader and Product Managers – DPMs - managing assets in the portfolio)

Establish and enforce governance standards, including stage-gate criteria for build, scale, pivot, and sunset decisions – in alignment with other portfolio roles and AI Factory leadership

Identify and enable synergies and consolidation opportunities across products/offers/PAs

Balance the portfolio across maturity, innovation, and reuse potential

Advise on buy-or-build decisions and prepare funding and prioritization trade-offs

Maintain transparency & provide insights on portfolio performance, risks, and ROI with all relevant stakeholders

Investment Management & Business Acumen

Own budget prioritization and annual planning for the portfolio, across build & maintenance needs

Evaluate commercial value, cost-to-build, differentiation, and client impact to guide investment decisions

Mediates trade-offs between go-to-market urgency, product innovation, tech feasibility/scalability and other guardrails eg. legal & RAI

Support governance boards and strategy boards sessions and decision-making

Together with the PSL and the relevant DPMs, design and maintain effective assets’ performance metrics and dashboards

Navigate billable economics (NCC growth) and internal investment mechanisms

Base prioritization on quantitative insights - adoption, usage, ROI, client pull, and reuse potential - and drive evidence-based portfolio refresh cycles

Cross-Functional Leadership & Stakeholder Management

Align Offer, Topic, and Sector Managers, Product Managers, and Tech Leads around shared portfolio outcomes

Mediate trade-offs between GTM urgency, product innovation, and technical feasibility

Facilitate portfolio review forums and escalation pathways

Influence senior MDPs and stakeholders without direct authority, driving clarity of ownership and accountability

Support the CPO, PA AI Leaders, and Helix Boards with investment decisions, ensuring transparency across the PM community and other PA key stakeholders

Technical & Product Literacy

Understand core elements of product/platform architecture and dependencies across systems

Understand scalability, integration, and technical debt at the portfolio level

Engage credibly on product architecture, system dependencies, scalability, and technical debt at the portfolio level

Ensure alignment with AI Factory and data governance standards

Promote reusability and modularity across PA agentic assets

Change Leadership & Innovation

Champion the shift toward truly agentic offers across PAs

Coach Product Managers and business stakeholders on governance discipline, investment case design, marketing and commercialization

Foster a culture of transparency, cross-topic reuse, and responsible innovation

Scan for emerging technologies and market shifts to enhance portfolio competitiveness

What You'll Bring

Experience & Expertise

10+ years of relevant experience, ideally combining a consulting or professional services background with hands-on product management expertise

Relevant domain expertise for the portfolio

Proven track record of owning and managing a portfolio of products/AI-powered offers, with direct accountability for investment decisions and performance outcomes

Solid understanding of product lifecycle management - from ideation and build through scale, pivot, and sunset

Familiarity with BCG or a peer consulting firm: PA structures, offer management, and client economics

Experience with governance frameworks and stage-gate portfolio processes

Sufficient technical literacy to engage credibly on AI product architecture, scalability, and data governance

MBA or similar Master's degree preferred

Leadership & Interpersonal Skills

Demonstrated ability to influence senior stakeholders and drive alignment in complex, matrixed, global organizations

Strong business acumen: able to assess commercial value, build investment cases, and navigate both billable and internal funding mechanisms

Good judgment and the ability to connect as a trusted peer across all levels - Managing Directors and Partners, consulting staff, and BST colleagues

Comfortable bringing structure, discipline, and clarity to fast-moving, ambiguous transformation efforts

Able to manage competing priorities and multiple workstreams without losing focus on strategic outcomes

Excellent verbal and written communication skills in English, with the ability to articulate complex trade-offs to senior audiences

Ways of Working

Self-starting and proactive - able to operate with autonomy and drive initiatives forward without waiting for direction

Open to new ideas, evolving priorities, and iterative ways of working in a rapidly changing environment

High integrity, positive attitude, and sound discretion when handling sensitive information

Who You'll Work With

The Cost AI Portfolio Strategy Lead works at the intersection of strategy, product, and technology across a broad stakeholder landscape, including and not limited to:

Chief Product Officer (CPO)

Global PA Product Strategy Lead (PSL)

PA Leadership especially PA AI leaders, GPMD, VBD, Offer/Topic leaders

Domain Product Managers (sitting in Vantage)

Offer/Topic/Sector management teams sitting in the PAs

AI Factory Lead

AI Factory delivery teams

Other AI Portfolio Strategy roles and BCG X commercial activation roles

Marketplace Product Lead

BCG/X enabling functions (Finance, HR, Legal, IT, Marketing)

Additional info

For US locations only

In the US, we have a compensation transparency approach.

Total compensation for this role includes base salary, annual discretionary performance bonus, retirement contribution, and a market leading benefits package described below.

The base salary range for this role in CITY is $159,000 - $184,500.

This is an estimated range, however, specific base salaries within the range depend on various factors such as experience and skill set. It is not common for new BCG employees to be hired at the high-end of the salary range. BCG regularly reviews its ranges to ensure market competitiveness.

In addition to your base salary, your total compensation will include a bonus of up to 30% and a generous retirement contribution that starts at 5% and moves to 10% after 2 years.

All of our plans provide best in class coverage:

Zero dollar ($0) health insurance premiums for BCG employees, spouses, and children

Low $10 (USD) copays for trips to the doctor, urgent care visits and prescriptions for generic drugs

Dental coverage, including up to $5,000 in orthodontia benefits

Vision insurance with coverage for both glasses and contact lenses annually

Reimbursement for gym memberships and other fitness activities

Fully vested Profit Sharing Retirement Fund contributions made annually, whether you contribute or not, plus the option for employees to make personal contributions to a 401(k) plan

Paid Parental Leave and other family benefits such as elective egg freezing, surrogacy, and adoption reimbursement

Generous paid time off including 12 holidays per year, an annual office closure between Christmas and New Years, and 15 vacation days per year (earned at 1.25 days per month)

Paid sick time on an as needed basis