Former Roland Berger CEO Martin Wittig joins Bain & Company

The former CEO of Roland Berger, Martin Wittig, has joined rival Bain & Company as a Senior Advisor in the firm’s Zurich office. Wittig, who lives and works in Switzerland, will strengthen Bain’s Financial Services team, with a focus on clients in the banking and insurance sectors. 

The 54-year-old started his career in management consulting with Roland Berger, which he joined after gaining his doctorate in Berlin. In 1999 he was appointed a partner, and under his leadership Roland Berger booked significant growth in Switzerland, the country office he managed. He became one of the crown princes of Roland Berger’s founder and also worked closely with Burkhard Schwenker, the CEO of the firm for many years. In 2003, Wittig was elected to the firm’s Global Executive Committee, and following a spell as CFO he was elected global CEO in 2010.

Under his direction, Wittig led Roland Berger through what was one of the most challenging times in its 50-year history. Against a backdrop of a contracting consultancy market, Roland Berger faced financial challenges, and it was founder Roland Berger himself who managed to maintain the firm’s independent status with a last-minute capital injection at the end of 2010, fending off Deloitte Consulting, which came close to poaching the German-origin firm. Wittig managed to successfully steer the consultancy through the period, but three years after taking the top role, he retired from his CEO post for health reasons.

Wittig has recovered since, and over the past years he has dedicated his time to providing individual advice to CEOs and executives, including Kuehne + Nagel. He is in addition a member of the Supervisory Board of UBS in Frankfurt and a member of the International Advisory Board of the University of St. Gallen (where he is also a lecturer).In his new role for Bain & Company, he will advise some of the firm’s most prominent clients in the financial services sector and work together with partners on top-management matters. Commenting on the move, Wittig said, "I look forward to contributing my more than 20 years of consulting experience to Bain and helping to make leading companies even more successful. For me, this is an opportunity to work again in a top team on strategically important issues, while also being able to pursue my other activities.” According to German magazine Manager Magazin he will work around half of his time for Bain.

Thomas Lustgarten, Bain’s Managing Director for Switzerland, is delighted with the addition to the team, stating that “Martin Wittig can look back on an exceptional career. He knows the consulting industry inside out and understands the specific nature of Swiss management. Moreover, as a human Wittig is extremely diverse – we are very happy to have him on board.” 

Wittig’s move follows in the footsteps of Ralph Kalmbach, an automotive expert who in September last year also made the transfer from Roland Berger, where he was a partner. At Bain, according to Glassdoor the best consulting firm to work for in Germany, he is now global co-head of the firm’s Automotive practice.

Bain & Company is led in the DACH region (Germany, Switzerland and Austria) by Walter Sinn, a former BCG consultant. Globally the consultancy is led by the Filipino Ernesto Maceda, who succeeded the American Bob Bechek in March this year. In Italy, the firm recently appointed Roberto Prioreschi as the new Managing Director.