MEHRDAD BAGHAI

Managing Director, Alchemy Growth Partners

Mehrdad is co-author of the international best-seller The Alchemy of Growth and the recently published sequel The Granularity of Growth. He has spent the last fifteen years leading or advising major growth programs.

Prior to founding Alchemy Growth Partners, Mehrdad was an Executive Director at the CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, with overarching responsibility for growth. As a member of the Office of the Chief Executive, Mehrdad designed a new model for managing the almost $1 billion science investment portfolio and served as chairman of the Commercial Executive Committee.

Previously, Mehrdad was a partner in the Sydney and Toronto offices of McKinsey and Company and co-leader of the Firm’s worldwide Growth Practice. He served clients in the technology, media and financial services sectors and specialized in strategies for turbulent environments.

He has also been the Chairman and CEO of Natural HealthLink, a healthcare technology venture in Los Angeles. As an attorney, he has been called to the state bar in New York and Massachusetts and worked as an associate with Coudert Brothers in New York and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in Los Angeles.

Mehrdad’s public sector experience includes an economist role with the World Bank and a consultant to the UN Secretariat. He has served a member of the Board of Directors of Unicef Australia and he has participated in various social and economic development projects.

Mehrdad received a B.S.E. with highest honours in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University, where he also completed a joint degree on public policy at the Woodrow Wilson School. He continued his education in public policy at Harvard where he completed an M.P.P. as a Kennedy Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government. He also completed a J.D. with high honours from Harvard Law School where he specialised in negotiation, served as Training Director of the Mediation Program and was selected to be Commencement Orator.