Erin George, MBA ’06, is helping pave the way for women in the consulting industry.
When Erin George, MBA ’06, Managing Director and Senior Partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) Dallas, began pursuing an MBA at McCombs, one thing stuck out to her immediately: how few women were in the program. While the landscape has changed since her time at The University of Texas at Austin, she has made part of her mission as an industry leader to pave the way for more women to reach their earning potential.
“I was used to seeing the rate of women in these programs at around 50 percent,” Erin, who grew up in Los Angeles, said. “Then I come to McCombs and the rate of females pursuing MBAs was around 20 percent. That was a shocker.”
She grew up attending an all-girls school in California, where women held all the leadership roles, something that was later mirrored in her sorority as an undergraduate at the University of Southern California. Her father, a USC professor, also encouraged his daughters to pursue leadership positions.
“Nothing was off-limits,” Erin, who received her Bachelor of Science in Business Marketing from USC, said. “There were no boundaries for us growing up.”
As the recipient of the Forté Foundation scholarship, which enabled her to pursue an MBA at McCombs, Erin was inspired to give back herself. Forté Foundation’s mission, in part, includes a “commitment to advancing women in business.” To date, the organization has awarded $400 million to women earning their MBAs. Erin’s commitment to furthering women in business deepened after she started her first consulting internship.
“I looked around and realized I was [one of ] the only female MBA[s] in the whole program,” she said. “That was also shocking. I said to myself then, ‘I’m going to prove I can do this and then I’m going to help other women do this, too.’”
Today, the rate of female McCombs full-time MBA candidates is 35%.
As she continued to forge deep relationships with her MBA cohort, Erin’s eye remained on the prize – carving out a larger space for women in the business consulting field. After graduation, she began working for BCG, where she quickly rose in the ranks, blazing a trail as the first female partner, and the first to get elected to managing director in the BCG Dallas office. Today, she leads the company’s Southwest Region.
“Now Dallas has the highest percentage of female directors in the company,” she said. “That’s something I care very passionately about.”
That passion has spilled over into philanthropic pursuits, including her stint as a member of the board of directors for Girls, Inc. of Metropolitan Dallas, which helps guide female students out of poverty and into leadership roles through mentorship and other programs. More recently, Erin established the Erin and Ken George Endowment for Future Female Leaders at McCombs. Erin hopes the endowment will inspire even more women to pursue an MBA, maybe even one of the Girls, Inc. students.
“I had such a large scholarship to business school; it was one of the reasons I went to McCombs, where I had such a great experience,” Erin said. “I always knew I wanted to give back when I could. It was a no-brainer. I want the Girls, Inc. girls to go to college. Maybe one of them will choose business school and maybe they will [benefit from the endowment].”
Looking back on it now, Erin sees that McCombs gave her way more than an opportunity to earn her MBA. It provided deep friendships she still enjoys to this day, along with the entrepreneurial spirit that has helped her pave the way for so many other women.
“The ethos of McCombs is you can do hard things. When there are challenges, you can think your way around them. That’s a big part of the role I’m in now,” she said. “Twenty years ago, there was only one model of success for women. Now, there are multiple paths to success, and I want to keep showing women that.”
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