The Art of Slowing Down

145: The Dark Side of Consulting: From Gaza to Global Scandals

It is becoming more and more difficult for the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) to claim that they had no idea that Partners within the company were working on the “Gaza Riviera” project which included a proposal to relocate inhabitants of Gaza to places such as Somalia and Egypt. Before I dive into the situation, I want to stress that this is not a political piece in any capacity, that is way above my paygrade as an unpaid intern. What I will be getting into is how there seem to be very little, if any internal or external controls with respect to what US-based MBB (McKinsey, Bain and BCG) and other firms work on for various clients.

For those who are unfamiliar, a Financial Times investigation found that Boston Consulting Group played a far greater role than acknowledged in developing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), an Israel and US backed aid program that has been condemned by the UN and humanitarian groups. Over seven months, more than a dozen BCG staff, under “Project Aurora”, worked on over $4 million in contracted projects, including building a financial model that estimated the cost of relocating up to 500.000 Gazans at $9.000 per person (about $5 billion total). The model also explored postwar reconstruction scenarios, with one “relocation” plan projecting 25% of Gazans leaving permanently and costing $23.000 less per person than rebuilding in Gaza.

BCG claims senior leadership was misled (right…remember over a dozen BCG personnel worked on this project) by two Washington-based defense partners, who were fired in June, and says the work violated internal policies. Initially billed as pro bono, the project evolved into paid work in Tel Aviv, advising on operations, logistics, and procurement, even as NGOs refused to participate. The work was developed for a group of