BCG Digital Ventures (BCGDV), the leading corporate innovation and business building arm of Boston Consulting Group (BCG), today announced that Amit Rai, a BCGDV Alum, entrepreneur, and business builder with 20 years of experience, is rejoining BCGDV as Managing Director and Partner on September 1.
For the past four years, Rai has been at the helm of London-based MachineMax, a breakthrough machine analytics service that helps construction and mining companies maximize machine productivity and profitability. He originally led the BCGDV team that created and built the business, before leaving in 2018 to take on the CEO role.
Under Rai’s leadership, MachineMax went on to revolutionize the heavy equipment industry, with the business growing to manage more than $300 million of assets in construction, mining, and industrial companies across 30 markets in six continents. MachineMax was wholly acquired by Shell in July 2021.
“The last four years have been a dream come true for a business builder like me – taking an initial idea and turning it into a hugely successful business which has changed the world, won awards and left a lasting legacy,” said Amit Rai, managing director and partner, BCGDV. “Now, I’m looking forward to rejoining the BCGDV team and using my unique blend of insider knowledge and experience to help fuel the next wave of venture success stories.”
“It is always exciting when BCGDVers depart to join one of our ventures full time as Amit did, but it’s even more exciting when they decide to ‘boomerang’ back to the fold,” said Stefan Gross-Selbeck, BCGDV managing director and global managing partner. “In the last seven years, we’ve launched more than 160 new digital businesses around the globe, and Amit’s impressive track record and skillset will be instrumental as we continue to build, scale, and innovate with the world’s leading organizations.”
“We’ve had our most successful year to date, with more corporate partners than ever turning to BCGDV to create and grow disruptive digital businesses, products, and platforms,” said Ajay Chowdhury, managing director and senior partner and regional lead, Western Europe, South America & Africa (WESA). “Amit’s business building experience and corporate know-how, combined with deep digital expertise, will add even more firepower to our already impressive WESA leadership team.”
Rai was educated at Harvard (MBA with High Distinction) and The Indian Institute of Technology. He began his career at Microsoft before joining McKinsey & Co where he led project teams at technology clients across the U.S. and Europe. He went on to manage Nokia’s global marketing strategy across 100+ countries and with a $1billion budget, before spending two years at HERE, the world’s #1 location platform, leading marketing across EMEA and APAC and product development within the Consumer division.
Collective parenting fails was the inspiration behind Rai’s first startup, founded with a fellow Harvard Alum. Initially self-funded, Let’s Coo, a group calendar app for school communities, went on to be named in Apple’s app store best of 2017, and he took the business to a successful exit. Rai joined BCGDV in 2017 as Venture Architect Director where he led teams of product managers, engineers, designers, strategists and growth experts to imagine, build and launch market-disrupting businesses.
Rai is also a non-exec of Atelier Technology, which is on a quest to digitize and simplify the jewelry industry global supply chain.
