Amit Rai: re-joining BCG to lead Digital Ventures in London

BCG Digital Ventures is about disruption and innovation. What has the business achieved since launching??

Since establishing in 2014, Digital Ventures has launched and scaled nearly 200 new digital business models globally, in markets spanning the United States, Africa, Middle East, Europe and Asia. We’ve built ventures for pretty much every major sector: industrial goods, energy, financial institutions, healthcare, consumer, and TMT (technology, media and telecom). The ventures are very diverse: some are close to the core business, others augment and extend the business, while others have created completely new business lines.

We’re building the future by creating ventures that leverage specific competitive advantages of corporate players. One of the best examples is when we helped a world-renowned airline company build a new health insurance business. We leveraged the unique data available to this company, helped it break into a completely new market, and have seen this venture evolve into the one of the largest healthcare businesses in its market. Using the traditional strategy process, you would never ask an airline company to start an insurance business line, and that’s the unique angle DV brings to the table and why we’re driving the next wave of innovation.?

What brought you back to BCG??

There were two main reasons. Firstly, the people, as this is key to whether you’re excited to do your job every day. At BCG, the breadth and depth of people’s intellectual capabilities and their positivity is second to none. Before making my final decision, I talked to numerous colleagues in corporates and start-ups, and I concluded that you don’t get this pool of talented people anywhere else. The second reason was impact: at BCG you get an opportunity to make impact at scale every day.?

How do you see BCG evolving??

BCG has progressed from a company which advised corporates on what they needed to do, to now actually making it happen. This is a new muscle that BCG has been developing. The second major development is around net positive impact, so apart from focusing on the impact of clients’ profitability, BCG is also considering the net positive impact for the planet and society in everything it does.?

How has BCG changed in how it values external experience??

As BCG is more focused on making things, it values the experience of people who have?delivered end-to-end results. If you’ve worked in companies, solving their day-to-day problems, then you have experience which both BCG and clients are looking for.?

What’s your ambition? Where do you see DV in the future??

Corporate venture building continues to be a strategic priority for business leaders across the UK, and I’d like to see more traditional corporations operating as digital natives, with the capability to innovate at an exponential speed leveraging latest technologies. My ambition is to change the world, by creating profitable ventures which have a net positive impact on our society and our planet. I’m convinced that DV has the capabilities, talent, and know-how to achieve it.