Director, Aura

WHAT MAKES US A GREAT PLACE TO WORK

We are proud to be consistently recognized as one of the world's best places to work, a champion of diversity and a model of social responsibility. We are currently ranked the #1 consulting firm on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list, and we have maintained a spot in the top four on Glassdoor's list for the last 12 years. We believe that diversity, inclusion and collaboration is key to building extraordinary teams. We hire people with exceptional talents, abilities and potential, then create an environment where you can become the best version of yourself and thrive both professionally and personally.  We are publicly recognized by external parties such as Fortune, Vault, Mogul, Working Mother, Glassdoor and the Human Rights Campaign for being a great place to work for diversity and inclusion, women, LGBTQ and parents.

WHO YOU’LL WORK WITH

Founder's Studio, Bain’s corporate venture studio, identifies, builds and scales the best new business ideas from both inside and outside of the firm. Founder's Studio focuses on turning professional services methodology and client needs into software product that can constitute attractive businesses.

• The Founder's Studio Global Head (Ron Kermisch) oversees:
• Operations, led by Chief Operating Officer (Nate Hamilton)
• Tech, led by Chief Technology Officer (Purna Doddapaneni)
• Ventures, led by Entrepreneurs

The Founder's Studio will support typically 4-6 ventures simultaneously.  Each venture will be incubated for a period of ~6 months before being potentially spun out from Bain, spun into Bain’s Engine 2 group, or “folding” (in the “fold” case all the know-how created in the incubation period needs to be available for the Founder's Studio and for the Practices involved).

AURA is Bain’s Founder’s studio most mature venture. AURA is a SaaS talent analytics platform that powers outside-in talent insights globally and across industries.  AURA has one of the largest and continuously updating talent datasets and provides critical insights that enable users to make faster & better-informed decisions.

Founded in 2020, AURA has achieved rapid growth and success, supporting >300 projects globally. The AURA team currently has 12 global resources (mix of permanent roles and contractors).

WHAT YOU’LL DO

The Director, AURA role is an exciting opportunity for an entrepreneurial individual with venture leadership experience. 

• The ideal candidate will be:
• A highly entrepreneurial self-starter, able to deal with a high level of ambiguity
• Experienced in turning early-stage businesses into successful scale-ups
• Proven track record of growing and leading cross-functional teams
• Passionate about people analytics
• Familiar with rapid software development

The Director's mission is to scale AURA into a high-growth, multi-million ARR standalone business and build up a high-functioning team to make AURA wildly successful.  

Responsibilities include:

• Build, lead and develop the AURA team
• Develop and own the long-term vision for AURA, product roadmap, commercial scaling plan, hiring plan and P&L 
• Drive the AURA business to reach full potential with its existing user base, accelerating revenue growth with a focus on paid subscriptions 
• Explore new use cases with medium to large Corporates to expand AURA’s addressable market and user base 
• Serve as the chief salesperson and evangelist for the product
• Manage relationship with all external vendors
• Lead conversations with Founder’s Studio leadership and external investors to fund next stage of growth, and lead AURA spin-out to create a standalone entity

The candidate will receive help from advisors including the Founder’s Studio Head, CTO, COO, internal Bain subject matter experts (such as Partners, Practice VPs, etc.), and external experts including successful entrepreneurs.  

This role can be based in any location with a preference for Americas.  Some travel may be required for commercial and team building purposes.  

• Accelerate AURA revenue growth with existing user base, with a strong focus on recurring revenue
• Build repeatable sales motion to sell paid subscriptions directly to external customers (Financial investors)
• Build strong pipeline of external leads
• Develop pitch materials 
• Onboard Sales/ Customer success profiles 
• Launch targeted Marketing campaigns 
• Leverage Bain network and outreach
• Achieve full potential within Bain, with a target to support all Due Diligence projects involving talent analytics 
• Increase awareness with targeted roadshow/ internal reach-out
• Collect and address user feedback to increase value addition and reduce friction 
• Closely partner with Bain experts to expand reach of AURA (PEGAR, BCN PEG, etc.) 
• Guide product and technical team members on prioritizing and implementing new features and functionality based on learnings; exercise the final “D” on product decisions.
• Explore new use cases/ revenue channels for AURA to expand addressable market and user base 
• Lead interviews with potential customers and domain experts to get feedback on the product as it evolves.
• Define a path for piloting the solution with alpha customers 
• Build a meaningful network of early adopters and advisors to iterate and collect user feedback
• Effectively pilot the solution to get the validation at the most advanced level possible;
• Rapidly incorporate learnings into the product, which may include enhancing the product or a more fundamental pivot; repeat.
• Lead preliminary market landscape analysis to identify the market situation, the startups and scale-ups in the target space. The Entrepreneur will be able to interact with internal and external tech experts to benchmark features and capabilities required in product. Some of this work already will have been done by the AURA team but may need to be expanded/refined.
• Recruit, interview, hire, lead, manage, and coach the AURA team 
• Source development talent and other contractors as needed (with support from Founder’s Studio CTO) 
• Manage relationship with external vendors
• Lead conversations with external investors to secure funding for AURA’s next stage of growth 
• Lead AURA spin-out and manage transition to set-up a standalone entity

ABOUT YOU

• Bachelor degree or higher
• Entrepreneurship experience leading a start-up 
• 5+ years of professional experience 
• Strong leadership capabilities, including sourcing, onboarding, PD management and creating an inspirational team experience
• Strong and professional client facing skillset
• Sound business judgment, with ability to anticipate business needs 
• Deadline-driven, organized and able to multitask
• A robust analytical skill set 
• Endless curiosity and a penchant for thinking the impossible / thinking ‘outside of the box’
• Outstanding written and verbal communications skills; English fluency required
• Willingness to travel as required
  

• MBA or master’s degree
• Technical / product knowledge could help to develop the venture but is not required (e.g., Degree in Computer Science)
• 3+ years of experience at Bain or other Tier-1 management consulting companies with clear domain expertise
• Experience as the GM of a business 
• Talent, HR, or other human capital experience
• Prior entrepreneurial, product management, or technical leadership experience; basic data science / machine learning familiarity.

Irrespective of an individual’s specific background, the successful candidate will be: 

• Collaborative – someone who knows how to work with and through others to drive results and make change happen, as well is customer service orientated
• Entrepreneurial, proactive, and productive -  someone who knows how to prioritize what needs to be done and rallies colleagues to get things accomplished; “roll up the sleeves” type of attitude
• Bright – both insightful and creative, with strong problem-solving skills and pragmatic, with a practical, “real-world” sense of what is actually “do-able”. Possesses an affinity for data-driven insights to make decisions, and able to harness knowledge and expertise of the best content to support the Practice
• Articulate and compelling in his/her oral and written communication skills; engaging and concise – with interpersonal “presence”; adaptable across executive, technical and Bain audiences
• Energetic, with drive, enthusiasm, and natural skills in relationship development; well-connected, with an extensive network of potentially relevant relationships
• Inspirational Leadership - track record of managing high-performing, service-oriented team members, motivating and developing colleagues above and below their own tenure
• A great colleague and teammate - passionate about the task at hand and fun to be around; someone with whom Bainies and clients go out of their way to work

ABOUT US 

Bain & Company is a global consultancy that helps the world’s most ambitious change makers define the future.

Across 64 cities in 39 countries, we work alongside our clients as one team with a shared ambition to achieve extraordinary results, outperform the competition, and redefine industries. We complement our tailored, integrated expertise with a vibrant ecosystem of digital innovators to deliver better, faster, and more enduring outcomes. Our 10-year commitment to invest more than $1 billion in pro bono services brings our talent, expertise, and insight to organizations tackling today’s urgent challenges in education, racial equity, social justice, economic development, and the environment. Since our founding in 1973, we have measured our success by the success of our clients, and we proudly maintain the highest level of client advocacy in the industry. 

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