HOW BARNIK MAITRA STEERED ADL INDIA TOWARD ITS GROWTH

Arthur D. Little India is already the fifth largest tier-1 management consulting firm in India, a feat it has achieved starting from scratch just over a year ago

- Avishek Banerjee

BARNIK CHITRAN MAITRA was on the advisory and founding board of several early-stage startups, funds, and incubators when he was approached by the top management of Arthur D. Little (ADL) to spearhead its second innings in India, early in 2020. The former NRI didn’t have second thoughts about the offer despite the plum positions he held globally. The India unit of the Brussels, Belgium headquartered company evolved from a status where it had zero employees and no revenues in April 2020, to be the fifth largest tier-one management consulting firm in the country with over 50 employees within a year of Maitra coming on board.

Arthur D. Little India is now pitted against companies like McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., BCG, AT Kearney, etc., which have a similar suite of offerings in the strategy consulting space such as Market Entry, Cost Optimization, Growth Strategy, Business Consulting, et al. “My passion for building the new India is one of my key reasons for taking up this challenging role at this juncture. Also, the coming decades and centuries belong to India, which is on the cusp of becoming a leading global economy. Furthermore, technology and innovation, fuelled by the vibrant startup ecosystem will be the new engines of growth for India,” says Maitra, Managing Partner, India, and South Asia, Arthur D. Little, in an exclusive interaction with BW Businessworld. “Interestingly, our business is and will always be bigger than that of China. The unique value proposition ADL pursues is serving sectors of the Indian economy whose full potential has not been realized and that need transformation to achieve the $5 trillion GDP goal and Atmanirbhar Bharat, most notably water, agriculture, tourism, and healthcare,” he explains.