Name: Alan McIntyre
Organisation: Accenture
Job Title: Senior Managing Director and Industry Lead for Banking
Location: New York City
Where I started: I grew up in Renfrew and went to Renfrew High School. After graduating from Glasgow University, I had the chance to do a Masters Degree in Finance at Cambridge. During my year at Cambridge I was recruited to be a management consultant in London working for a small boutique company called the MAC Group. After a couple of years, I went to business school at IMD in Switzerland to do an MBA and then ended up working in New York for most of the last 30 years. Nearly 25 years where with a company called Oliver Wyman and the last 5 with Accenture
Where I am now: I am responsible for everything that Accenture does in the Retail and Commercial Banking space which accounts for over 10% of our business and over $4Bn in total revenue each year. I’m also responsible for leading a group of over 20,000 people within Accenture who are focused on Banking. My job is to think about the future of the banking industry and ensure that Accenture develops the services required to help banks better serve their customers and become more profitable. I am one of the public faces of the company, so I spend a lot of time presenting at conferences and to Bank executive teams and Boards of Directors. Pre-pandemic this involved a lot of travel and in a typical year I would fly 150k to 200k a year and would usually be flying across the Atlantic about once a month in additional to trips to Asia, Australia, and South America. My satisfaction comes from being a recognized industry expert but also from developing, mentoring, and trying to inspire the banking staff in Accenture.
Advice: Most important advice would be not to be constrained by what you think you can do or other people’s expectations of you. I was fortunate enough to have been presented with a series of opportunities, but I still needed to take them and take some risks. It is easy to walk down the corridor of life and be focused on the distance and what you think you want to do, but doors will open along the way and you should at least look in those rooms and see what you think. If I hadn’t taken the opportunity to go to Cambridge when it was offered to me, I wouldn’t be where I am now. Also find something where you are contributing beyond your own career to build something that has durability. I was lucky enough to help build Oliver Wyman from a company of 65 people into a firm of over 4000 people when I left, and I have derived great satisfaction from that. Also pay a lot of attention to whether you like the people you are working with. Like most things in life work is really about relationships and I’ve generally been excited to get up each morning and go to work because I’ve enjoyed the people that I’ve worked with throughout my career.
