Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
We've made gender diversity a strategic priority, and that's reflected in our efforts to not only hire the world's most talented business leaders but to invest as needed so that everyone thrives, personally and professionally.
Womxn at Bain (WAB) aims to be inclusive of all women and gender non-conforming (GNC) individuals who wish to be a part of our WAB community.
The use of “womxn” emerged from a desire to be explicit about our commitment to inclusion within WAB. After many dialogues with our people, including those who identify as part of these communities, we carefully defined our own understanding of and purpose for Womxn at Bain. Our ‘x’ serves as a visual symbol to welcome all GNC individuals who feel they would benefit from participating in WAB. This is entirely separate from trans women, who have always been recognized as women at Bain.
We recognize that a name does not make us inherently more inclusive, but we view it as an important step, in parallel with the other actions we’re taking, to continue on our journey of building a culture of extraordinary teams.
Our overarching goal for WAB is to make Bain the best place to work for our members. That mission is defined not only by supporting their career success, but by making sure they truly thrive—that they grow and flourish in both their professional and personal lives. Each person's path will be shaped by their own priorities, but every member can count on our commitment and support.
Across every industry, consulting service, and geography, our WAB members are making a huge impact daily for our clients. Their expertise and thought leadership fuel our remarkable success, and play a critical role in defining our culture.
We know that every person is unique and every path is different. In each office, we have put in a place a WAB partner and manager responsible for personalizing the global and regional initiatives to every individual in their local office WAB community. These teams develop the local initiatives (mentorship, experience sharing, professional development) that further impact the day-to-day experience and enable our WAB members in each office to thrive.
Bain's global governing body for our gender efforts is our world-wide council comprised of our chief diversity officer, chief talent officer, our regional managing partners, several office heads from each region and other senior partners in the firm. The council's primary role is to ensure that we develop and embed the global efforts to stay at the forefront of gender diversity in our firm. We have regional operating committees that work to ensure our global efforts are customized to each region and to create specific initiatives where relevant.
We recognize that thriving requires flexibility in structuring your long-term career, so we invest to enable many models of success via a full suite of opportunities, including part-time work, transfers, externships, time away, and internal roles.
We are focused on working with each region and office to ensure that we have an inclusive culture that enables every individual to thrive. This includes efforts such as ongoing dialogues and forums to discuss the to discuss topics such as aspiration and confidence and the behaviors we need to undertake to influence them. Our Global Forum is a three-day training session held every other year. It brings together our senior WAB leaders, as well as many senior men, for training and conversations about day-to-day initiatives.
