Charlie Kim

Charlie is a partner based in our New York office. Throughout his 30-year career at Bain, Charlie has led an extremely broad array of engagements and relationships with leading incumbent and challenger technology, communications, and media clients. He has also directly led and advised more than 100 strategic and commercial due diligence assessments on behalf of Bain’s financial investor clients.

Charlie’s industry focus in Tech/Media/Telecom has long been fueled by a perennial interest in disruption, transformation, and renewal.  Drawn by the potential and challenges of market upheavals, Charlie has led work in areas from e-commerce to mobile solutions to online marketplaces and media disruption, etc., all connected by the thread of technology-enabled disruptions to either challenge current market leaders or create new ones.  During his years living and working in the Bay Area, Charlie served as a co-head of our Technology/Media/Telecom practice in the Americas and directly led and supported our extended practice team in similar missions in the Americas and around the globe.  His experience includes the development of corporate and growth strategies, M&A strategies and merger integration, new product campaigns, marketing strategies, and turnarounds. He has worked closely with clients to transform their operating models in the face of the tumultuous change from customers, competitors, and technology.  His recent work has focused on the digital disruptions and imperatives facing our global communications and media clients, with implications on strategy/M&A, operations and critical capabilities such as data management and analytics.

Charlie’s deep interest and vertical expertise in technology disruption and the dynamics of competitive/market transformation also brought him to the intersection of technology and investment in Bain’s Financial Investors practice several decades ago.  From diligencing the earliest e-commerce players and marketplaces, Charlie has now extensively advised most of Bain’s leading private investor clients on a range of technology and mediacom assets, ranging from marketplaces to enterprise software to service providers in the B2B and B2C arenas.

Charlie received a B.A. in Economics from Harvard College and an MBA with high distinction from Harvard Business School. A native New Yorker, Charlie and his family currently live in the suburbs of New York City, having spent significant time as well in Boston and the Silicon Valley communities.