Bruce Doolin Henderson (1915–1992) founded the in 1963, a moment that fundamentally shifted management consulting from operational efficiency to corporate strategy. Henderson’s career began as a Bible salesman, and after studying engineering at Vanderbilt University, he rose through the ranks at Westinghouse to become one of its youngest vice presidents before entering the consulting field at Arthur D. Little.
In 1963, with a loan from the bank and the reluctant blessing of ADL, Henderson founded the Management Consulting Division of The Boston Savings and Loan Institution. This entity, initially intended to serve as the consulting arm of the bank, would eventually evolve into The Boston Consulting Group. The early days were precarious. Henderson faced the daunting task of building a client base from scratch, competing against established giants. Yet, he possessed a unique vision: he wanted to apply rigorous economic theory to business problems, treating the corporation not as a collection of departments, but as a portfolio of assets subject to the laws of competition. founder of bcg
Out of this belief came BCG’s first bombshell: the . Henderson observed that real unit costs declined by a predictable percentage (typically 20–30%) every time cumulative production doubled. The implication was radical: market share wasn’t just a vanity metric. It was a weapon. The company with the highest cumulative experience could underprice everyone and still make money. Bruce Doolin Henderson (1915–1992) founded the in 1963,
In the annals of modern business history, few figures cast a shadow as long as Bruce Henderson. As the founder of The Boston Consulting Group (BCG), Henderson did not merely establish a successful company; he invented the modern management consulting industry. Before Henderson, business advice was largely synonymous with accounting and efficiency auditing. After him, it became a rigorous, intellectual discipline grounded in economics and strategy. Henderson’s journey from a unconventional salesman to the patriarch of corporate strategy is a testament to the power of ideas and the courage to challenge established orthodoxy. In 1963, with a loan from the bank