BCG partner Caroline Blanch Israel named WEF Young Global Leader

The World Economic Forum has named its 2022 class of Young Global Leaders, with Sydney-based Boston Consulting Group (BCG) managing director and partner Caroline Blanch Israel among the 100+ individuals selected worldwide.

Israel joins Bain & Company’s Lucy d’Arville as one of roughly twenty current Australian representatives among the global community, and will be a member of the forum for a six-year term.

Israel has been with BCG for over a decade, first joining for a two-and-a-half-year stint in Melbourne in 2006, before spending a year on secondment as a policy adviser in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s strategy & delivery division and as a course assistant at Harvard. She rejoined the management consultancy in Washington in 2011, transferring to BCG’s Sydney office as a partner eight years later.

A core member of BCG’s global consumer practice, Israel is an expert in ecommerce and advanced analytics in retail with strategy and operations experience in the Australian and international grocery, convenience, food service, apparel and accessories segments. In addition, she chairs BCG’s People function for the A/NZ region, and serves as a Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion sponsor for BCG in the Asia Pacific.

Established in 2004, the Forum of Young Global Leaders celebrates remarkable leaders under the age of 40 from a diverse range of professions and backgrounds, with current Oceania members and alumni including New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Adern, Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes, and Greens senator Sarah Hanson-Young.

This year, there was a particular emphasis on sustainability and inclusiveness. Invited to speak on the subject, Israel asserted that diversity & inclusion should be made a business imperative. “Diversity, equity and inclusion are high on the agenda of most leaders and are a mainstay of company values and ethics statements.”

“Yet there’s work still to be done in getting inclusion out of the realm of HR and into the core of the c-suite. Multiple studies have shown the correlation between diverse teams and business performance.”

“For example, our own research shows that LGBTQ+ employees who are out at work feel more empowered, more productive and more willing to take creative risks. The payoffs for performance and innovation are clear. I try to make this link salient with my teams, clients and board colleagues – by creating space for diverse voices, celebrating successes borne of unconventional teaming and calling it out when culture gets in the way of high performance.”