Michelle Russell is Senior Partner & Managing Director at The Boston Consulting Group. She led Women@BCG for North America from 2013-2017. Michelle is a core member of the People & Organization practice area. She previously led BCG’s Healthcare Practice for the Midwest and Canada, and is a member of the firm’s Health Care Practice Scientist Network (Healthcare Practice). Michelle has deep client experience in change management and strategy.
She received a PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford University and a BA from the University of St. Thomas (St Paul, MN). Michelle lives in Chicago with her husband and two young daughters.
Sneak Peek Into What You’ll Learn…
01:20 – Michelle tells us more about her life as a strategy consulting partner at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG).
04:02 – Michelle shares the three reasons why she’s still at BCG after 16 years.
06:18 – Michelle tells us about meeting her husband and having kids while building her consulting career.
07:22 – We unpack the process Michelle went through in returning to a demanding job after maternity leave.
08:20 – Michelle talks about the struggle of not feeling like she was doing a great job at home or at work when she returned after having her first child.
10:01 – Michelle provides concrete advice about how to prepare for going out on maternity leave and how this preparation can make your return to work less challenging.
12:30 – Michelle tells us more about the steps the BCG has taken to make the firm a great place for women to work.
15:50 – We learn about BCG’s innovative program, “Apprenticeship in Action,” that has helped them to retain mid-career women.
17:01 – Michelle talks about the findings from the research BCG did internally to understand why it had historically been difficult to retain women.
21:28 – Michelle shares the advice she would give to a company who wants to improve its ability to retain mid-career women.
23:38 – Michelle provides clear, concrete advice for women who are trying to determine which employers would be a great fit for their specific needs.
26:11 – Michelle tells us more about how she juggles being a Senior Partner at BCG while raising two daughters.
29:31 – Michelle describes what she still struggles with, many years into her journey as a working mother.
30:35 – Michelle hates the phrase “work life balance.” She tells us why and what she prefers instead.
34:47– Brass Tacks – The lightning round of concrete advice and tips.
Quotable quotes:
- “The first year of motherhood is just daunting. That was a time when I just felt like I was mediocre at everything, at best.”
- “I think you have to figure it out [juggling a big job and parenthood]—you work through it and you give yourself a break. And actually, I think I got better at how I did the job because I had to prioritize.”
- “But that first year [back after having a child] is just hard…I try to encourage people to just give themselves a break and that they will figure out a new way of working that works for them, but it takes time.”
- “I think, look, you can’t do it all, actually. You have to figure out what matters to you and prioritize that.”
- “At this point, what I’ve realized is that I can be a role model by being real, and being vulnerable, and showing that it doesn’t all work perfectly, and that doesn’t mean that it’s failing.
- “I think we’re much more willing to give other people a break than we are to give ourselves a break. And I think that you, at the end of the day, first and foremost, have to live with yourself. And so actually celebrating what you do well, reveling in those great moments, and letting the tough moments go away…”
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