By Chip Cutter

Boston Consulting Group is naming a new chief risk officer and putting other client-selection protocols in place after months of controversy stemming from its work on an Israeli-backed aid-distribution initiative in Gaza.

Amyn Merchant replaces Adam Farber in overseeing risk functions across the firm -- three months after Farber and another senior partner stepped down from leadership roles over the firm's involvement in the widely criticized Gaza initiative, BCG said Tuesday. Merchant, a three-decade veteran of the firm, will help implement the findings of a BCG-commissioned investigation into how the initially pro-bono project veered into what the firm called unauthorized work.

In recent weeks, BCG has formalized guidelines on how it will work with humanitarian groups going forward and set some restrictions on work in active conflict zones. Leaders inside the firm said they are also working to reinforce its evaluation and approval processes for social-impact work.

"We are learning from the missteps that have happened," BCG CEO Christoph Schweizer said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

BCG last fall took on what was then a pro-bono project to help solve food-supply challenges in Gaza and ultimately led to the establishment of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Hundreds of Palestinians seeking supplies from the initiative were subsequently killed after troops fired toward crowds near the aid-distribution sites, according to local health authorities, and the Gaza work has spiraled into the most significant crisis in BCG's roughly six-decade history.

The firm later fired two other U.S. partners in BCG's public sector defense and security practice, saying one of them had misrepresented the work and that both had continued it against BCG's instructions. That work included a postwar financial model to voluntarily relocate Palestinians.

Farber and the other senior partner who stepped down from their leadership roles in July remain as senior partners, focusing full-time on client work, the firm said.

Inside BCG, the firm faced backlash from some employees, too, according to people familiar with the matter. Many questioned how BCG got involved in the aid initiative, which was assailed by international groups, the European Union and governments of more than 20 countries for endangering citizens and forcing Palestinians to move through combat zones to have a chance at collecting supplies.

BCG isn't releasing the results of its investigation into the matter, but the firm said Tuesday that it "concluded that this work was the result of individual misconduct, enabled by unwarranted process exceptions, gaps in oversight, and misplaced trust."

The firm, in codifying its work with humanitarian groups, said it would now only assist established aid organizations and that it won't support projects "on humanitarian program delivery on the front line of active conflict zones." Its humanitarian work will also be subject to enhanced approval protocols and elevated risk screening.

Merchant, the newly appointed risk executive, had been serving as the co-chief risk officer on an interim basis for months. He has chaired BCG's audit and risk committee since 2020. As part of his new role, he will drop some client work and focus primarily on reinforcing the company's internal processes and culture, including that employees should speak up when something isn't right.

The firm in recent months has been focused on: "How do we prevent this from happening again?" Merchant said in an interview. There are "a set of processes that we need to ensure are consistently applied across the board."

Write to Chip Cutter at chip.cutter@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 21, 2025 11:39 ET (15:39 GMT)

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