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Mickey McManus is an Executive Coach and Senior Advisor at Boston Consulting Group. He has coached both new and established leaders in a range of industries and situations, including working with executive boards to find and nurture founders/CEOs, helping executives work through transitional moments in their company’s evolution, helping leaders transition into new roles, and helping seasoned executives and board members leading large-scale change (particularly digital transformations). In addition to his work at BCG, Mickey is a visiting research fellow at Autodesk’s Office of the CTO.

A pioneer in pervasive computing, collaborative human/machine innovation, and human-centered design and education, Mickey was the president, CEO, and chairman of MAYA Design, a design consultancy and innovation lab that was spun out from Carnegie Mellon University in 1989. During Mickey’s 13 years as CEO at MAYA, the company won numerous Consumer Electronic Association (CEA) awards for product innovation, and spun out, launched, or incubated five new MAYA organizations based on research done for the US government’s “Department of Strategic Surprise,” DARPA.

Mickey holds 12 patents in the area of connected products, environments, vehicles, and services. His current research is at the intersection of automation, cognitive capacity, biases, and meta-cognition. He is the co-author of the award-winning book Trillions: Thriving in the Emerging Information Ecology.

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

EDUCATION

  • BFA, industrial design, University of Illinois, Chicago

Publications and Videos

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Imagine This... A Bot in the C-Suite?

By 2030, the best CIO might be a CIB: a chief intelligence bot. And the human CEO might be bolstered by a swarm of CEO bots. BCG’s Mickey McManus envisions a future where top leaders share the corner office with AI—blending logic with human intuition.

How Leaders Grow

BCG’s team of executive coaches know from experience what’s it like to be a world-class leader—and what it takes to reach your fullest potential.

Give Design Maturity Its Due During Due Diligence - Rectangle

Give Design Maturity Its Due During Due Diligence

Great design can create great value. Yet, few companies examine the design capabilities of a target business—or their own. Here’s how to change that.
Reach the Next Level by Learning How to Learn

Reach the Next Level by Learning How to Learn

Companies that build advanced continuous-learning organizations can attract and keep the best talent—and create lasting competitive advantage.
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For Companies, Cognition Is a Terrible Thing to Waste

To avoid cognitive overload, organizations are devising new ways to protect, restore, and build the cognitive powers of employees, partners, and customers.