Bain's Manny Maceda on list of impactful Asians and Pacific Islanders

Bain worldwide managing partner Manny Maceda has been named a Gold House 2020 A100 honoree, which celebrates the impact made by Asians, Asian American, and Pacific Islanders.

Elected in 2017 as the strategy and management consultancy’s first boss of Asian heritage, Bain & Company worldwide managing partner Emmanuel ‘Manny’ Maceda has now been included on an annual list of impactful individuals of Asian, Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) backgrounds. Born in the US of Filipino descent, Maceda was raised in the Philippines before later returning to the States.

An initiative of Gold House, a nonprofit coalition of US-based Asian cultural organisations, the annual A100 List celebrates AAPI identities across a wide variety of industries, with actor Keanu Reeves (who is of Chinese-Hawaiian descent), Japanese tennis champion Naomi Osaka, and former Democratic hopeful Andrew Yang as just some of the names featuring alongside Maceda on this years’ list.

“It is an honor to be included in this celebration of AAPI Heritage month,” said Maceda, who has guided Bain & Company through double-digit revenue growth globally since taking the helm. “I am humbled to be recognised along with such an illustrious group of my peers. Moments like these are important in acknowledging and paying respect to both Asian and Pacific Islander heritage and community.”

After returning to US from the Philippines to study a degree in chemical engineering from the Illinois Institute of Technology, Maceda then went on to earn a MSc. from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he currently serves on the advisory board. Kicking off his career at DuPont, Maceda then joined Bain in San Francisco in 1988, and today oversees a network of offices across 37 countries.

Currently responsible for all aspects of the consulting firm’s strategy, team and operations, Maceda among other roles previously served as Chairman of Bain & Company’s Asia-Pacific region and as Global leader of its Performance Improvement practice, with his cross-industry client work focused on large corporate transformations involving strategy, growth, cost reduction and organisational effectiveness.

Shortly after Maceda took the helm in 2018, another of the world’s leading strategy and management consultancies, Kearney (which rebranded from A.T. Kearney at the beginning of this year), also elected its first global leader of Asian descent – managing partner Alex Liu, who was born in Taiwan before moving to the Southern US and has spoken of the discrimination he experienced at the time.

While that may have been in the 60s, a number of this year’s honourees have been keen to point out the current spike in abuse and discrimination being experienced by Asians in the US and around the world due to misguided views on the global coronavirus pandemic. “It is as important as ever to highlight leaders in the Asian community and support one another,” fashion designer Prabal Gurung told Adweek.

Gurung, of Nepalese descent, continued; “When we uplift each other, it is a show of solidarity to the world that we are here, we are united, and we aren’t going anywhere. Also, unity within our own community allows us to be stronger allies to other minority groups. Right now, you can support the AAPI community by speaking out against racism using whatever platform you have and supporting small businesses.”