Guia joined BCG in 2010 as Visiting Associate and recently became a Managing Director and Partner in our Milan office. With her expertise and extensive knowledge of the Fashion & Luxury industry, she is the go-to person for our industry clients across Italy, France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We got in touch with her to learn about her BCG journey so far and what it is like to lead such a diverse and vast practice area.

What has your BCG journey been like?

BCG was my first working experience. I still remember the excitement of the first day, as I knew this company represented an excellent opportunity to empower my professional journey. I have had the chance to connect with forward-thinking colleagues who played a significant role in developing my professional skills and personal growth. Their unwavering dedication to making a positive impact on society left a lasting impression on me, and that same passion continues to inspire me to this day. Since then, it’s been thirteen years, and many things have happened in BCG, the world, and my personal life. If I had to recall two significant milestones in my professional journey, I would think of when I was promoted to Project Leader and – more recently – nominated Managing Director and Partner.

Becoming Project Leader is a crucial moment in the career of every BCGer, as the type of work and responsibilities drastically change. You become a point of reference for the team, the client, and the senior BCG team. While challenging, this is a powerful learning experience: it makes you understand that “grow by growing others” isn’t just a motto at BCG, but a reality. Developing meaningful relationships with the team and the clients is crucial to succeed.

Being nominated Managing Director and Partner is the second most remarkable moment in the life of a BCGer. You become the final decision-maker in many situations, and this gives you much freedom, but also new responsibilities. This is where our other BCG principle, “Lead with Integrity” comes into play. My nomination also arrived three days before I discovered I would become a mum. Therefore, this moment holds significant personal emotions for me as well. Undoubtedly, it ranks among the best moments of my life.

What does being a woman at BCG mean to you?

Women face excessive exposure to idealized images on social media. It is challenging to muster the motivation to work on self-confidence, particularly when our society still favors a male-dominated culture that can feel overwhelming and oppressive. This is why I find my job at BCG so fulfilling: the culture here allows everyone, regardless of gender or ethnicity, to carve out their path and it offers countless personal and professional development opportunities to us all.

While leading the regional Fashion & Luxury practice, I do my best to create an environment where women feel empowered to follow their strengths and forge their paths. Being there as a mentor and role model is the most powerful thing women can do to support other women. It’s an arduous task: you always have someone looking at you, trying to learn from you, and being inspired by what you do. The beauty of it is that it gives you a lot of rewards; joy, a sense of purpose, and energy.

In your many years at BCG, you've worked with a wide variety of BCGers. Why is it important for you to work in teams with diverse and complementary skill sets?

Throughout my years at BCG, our job has evolved significantly and has become more and more complex. What sets us apart is the ability to assist our clients with a complementary and diverse set of skills, and that is often provided by BCGers coming from the industry. This approach empowers clients to build differentiating competencies and gain a competitive advantage.

Therefore, we always work in cross-functional teams, ensuring we can provide the best possible results to the client. This not only brings value and impact to clients, but it’s also an incredible opportunity for BCGers to always learn something new, meet new people, grow their knowledge, and be challenged. People, their uniqueness and peculiarities, are indeed the reasons why I still find my job very enjoyable after thirteen years.

How have you seen the fashion and luxury (F&L) market evolve throughout your career, and how has your perspective changed since becoming an MDP?

When I embarked on my BCG journey in 2010 as a fresh graduate, the world of Fashion and Luxury placed significant emphasis on geographical expansion. For instance, firms were focused on establishing direct stores in the key global hubs. Then, as time passed, I noticed a shift toward retail development. Today, we find ourselves in a different situation: the focus has changed towards innovation, with disruptive trends such as Artificial Intelligence, Personalization, and Clienteling… and our work as strategic consultants has also evolved.

Among the many projects we run for our clients, I’ve recently been involved in a couple of projects where the goal was to support our clients in developing AI solutions. AI use cases can, on one hand, generate value and profit and therefore fund the journey to scale AI and, on the other hand, help clients create a sustainable competitive advantage. With our digital branch, BCG X, we developed custom-made solutions to support clients, such as Optimal Pricing and Promotions, Marketing Spend Allocation Optimization, or Personalization. All these types of projects bring to our clients a very diverse set of expertise and innovation capabilities.

I’ve also witnessed a significant evolution in our F&L team. When I was promoted to Project Leader, the F&L team in our local office was composed of 2 people, one of whom was me. From two people, we can now proudly say that we are a team of more than thirty: it took years of coaching and mentoring to junior resources that are now pillars of the practice at different seniority levels, affiliation events (one of my favorites is the monthly F&L breakfast!) and last but not least an increasing portfolio of exciting clients and projects. We are a community of professionals with very different backgrounds: merchandising, engineering, marketing, economy, data science, and journalism but with one evident passion: the Fashion & Luxury industry.

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