BCG Promotes Three AI Leaders Who Manage People, Not Just Code

As firms become more technical, they find they need leaders with strong people management skills who can help employees become comfortable experimenting with new tools, adapt workflows, and manage the organizational changes that come with AI. Technical depth matters, the firm said, but so does bringing people along.

Taylor, who leads BCG's Denver office and specializes in healthcare, said generative AI has changed how she works with teams. "It has made my teams spend more time on the things that really matter: thinking through the toughest problems clients face, getting to the detail and nuance more quickly, and spending less time on administrative tasks," she said.

Luther said her top priority is setting the right environment for teams to experiment and innovate with AI offerings. In practice, that means protecting time for upskilling, giving teams tools to experiment, and "shouting from the rooftops on what is working," she said.

Palumbo said the definition of a consultant is now broader. BCG X, the firm's build-and-design arm, is 100% execution-focused. "We bring a team that doesn't just advise, but is hands-on and drives the change," he said. "That's a different flavor of consulting than what people may have thought of 10 years ago, and it comes with a much higher degree of measurability and accountability."

BCG is also watching how CEOs use AI. Luther noted that 72% of CEOs now call themselves the primary decision-maker on AI, double from 2025. "AI tailored to a CEO's decision-making context could dramatically accelerate that process," she said, "by reconciling conflicting information, surfacing tradeoffs, testing assumptions, and flagging risks before the meeting begins."