Partner, Best-selling Author, Former Head of Global Strategy Practice at Bain & Company

Chris has spent most of his career as a member of the Bain partner team growing Bain & Company from a start-up to a global consulting leader. For over 20 years he was head of the firm’s Global Strategy Practice. In his client work, management roles, speaking and writing, Chris has specialized in how companies find new sources of profitable growth and renew themselves internally to become faster, adaptive and more entrepreneurial. 

He is a best-selling author whose fifth book, The Founder's Mentality, was published in 2016 by Harvard Business Press.  Chris is also the author of Repeatability: Build Enduring Businesses for a World of Constant Change, which presents an argument for simple, great repeatable models to realize enduring, profitable growth. In 2010, he published a new edition of Profit from the Core: A Return to Growth in Turbulent Times which offers an approach to assessing full potential of a core business. Beyond the Core: Expand your Market without Abandoning your Roots was voted one of the top 100 business books ever written. It examines the best ways for companies to expand into related, or "adjacent," areas. Unstoppable: Finding Hidden Assets to Renew the Core and Fuel Profitable Growth completes the series and examines what to do when your past growth formula begins to approach its limits.

These books received widespread critical support. Beyond the Core was recognized by The Economist as one of the top five business and economic books in 2004. The Financial Times identified Unstoppable as one of the notable business books of the year. Based on his work, Mr. Zook was included by the Times of London in its biannual list of the 50 Most Influential Global Business writers, has been named Consultant of the year by Consulting Magazine, and was inducted into the Top 50 Business Thinkers Hall of Fame in 2019.  

Chris has written extensively in the business press, ranging from columns in the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Fortune and Forbes as well as numerous articles for Harvard Business Review. He been a frequent guest on TV and Radio, including NPR, CNBC, and Bloomberg TV. In addition, Chris speaks and holds workshops at a range of business forums around the world including the World Economic Forum in Davos, the World Knowledge Forum, the Forbes’ CEO Conference, the BusinessWeek CEO Conference, the Economist Summit, and Endeavour’s entrepreneur summits. In the last five years, he has done over 500 talks and workshops across more than 35 different countries. 

Outside of his consulting role, Chris has served on Bain’s Board of Directors and its Investment Committee. He was president of the American Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands during ten years that he lived in Europe. He also invests time in a range of non-profit capacities including the Endeavor Global Entrepreneur network.

Chris received a Bachelor of Arts in mathematics and economics from Williams College, an M.Phil. in economics from Exeter College, Oxford University, and Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Harvard University.

He splits his time between Boston and in Amsterdam and is presently starting work on a new book project. Chris is married with two children. His main personal interests are travel photography, playing guitar, fitness, and tennis.