October 9, 2025. Shanghai-- “Corporates today are increasingly becoming multinational, and the difference between multinational and global is you now select and decide,” said Bain & Company Chairman Manny Maceda at a CEIBS Executive Forum on the school’s Shanghai campus today.

In a fireside chat with CEIBS Associate Dean and Director of the MBA Programme Zhang Lingling, Mr. Maceda explored the theme “Leadership Priorities and the Role of AI”, drawing on three decades of experience advising global CEOs, reflecting on how leadership philosophies are shaped by personal experiences and generative AI, and the capabilities that will be critical for the next generation of leaders.

Navigating a more fragmented global landscape

In his opening remarks, Mr. Maceda discussed how the very definition of the word “global” has changed amid today’s geopolitical and economic shifts.

“The definition of global is just not there anymore. We don’t live in a world where we can move goods and services and talent seamlessly. It’s almost like going back to before I went into business. It’s multinational, it’s international,” he said, adding that companies today must be very specific about which countries and which markets they enter where to place operations, and where to initiate and cease operations in a world that’s less secure.

Mr. Maceda further noted that multinational corporations (MNCs) are facing unprecedented complexity as global integration gives way to more selective, regionally focused strategies.

For Chinese companies going abroad, Mr. Maceda emphasised the importance of building global management teams and diverse talent pools.

“If China wants to continue to have more global [and] multinational firms, the most important thing is that they need to have really global leadership and management teams,” he said. “Being global means global scale. It’s not just selling everywhere, but hiring, developing, and leading talent anywhere in the world.”

Leading with purpose and building loyalty

Discussing how leaders can find purpose amid uncertain times, Mr. Maceda underscored the role of mission and values in driving both performance and loyalty.

“Purpose means what is the mission, vision, and values that make the company, that give the company a reason to exist,” he said. “If you don't have a purpose, people will not be loyal, and loyalty, in business, is more powerful than technology or scale. If you can earn customer loyalty, you can win.”

Loyalty, he noted, extends beyond customers and into the organisation itself.

Bain & Company, which ranked #1 on Glassdoor’s Best Led Companies list in both 2024 and 2025, exemplifies this belief through its people-first culture and innovative work environment, he said.

“In my business, there’s a direct correlation between customer loyalty and talent loyalty. You don’t build loyal talent through money or fame, but through more direct connection, meaning and purpose,” Mr. Maceda explained. “At Bain, leadership is defined by servant leadership, creating an environment where people can succeed. Because for us, our capital is our people. How we hire, who we hire, how we train, retain, and promote. All of that supports purpose.”

Skillsets needed for tomorrow

When asked what skillsets aspiring future leaders should develop, Mr. Maceda stressed his belief that the key to success lies in the interplay of diverse skillsets, including technical, analytical, and human skills.

“If you look at the skills that deliver both insight and results, to a certain extent, it's the functional analytic skills that you learn in the classroom: good strategy, good operations, good understanding of capital structures. Those are necessary but not sufficient. To be really good, to actually create value, you also need to know how organisations work, how to motivate and inspire people, and how to drive change,” he said. “Those are the timeless skills in running complex multinational organisations.”

On the technology front, Mr. Maceda described AI as an enabler that accelerates insight generation. “Tools like ChatGPT, Claude, or DeepSeek reduce ‘time to insight’. It's a tool. Understanding the tools is more important than being the operator.”

Looking ahead, with an insight of key relevant to the audience of CEIBS students and alumni, Mr. Maceda suggested that teams in enterprises of the future should aspire to be an integration of MBAs (business knowledge), technical experts (technology know-how), and AI agents.

“The MBAs need to understand and learn to connect the dots, because they’re the ones who lead expert technical teams and integrate AI capabilities in the right ways,” Mr. Maceda concluded.