I would assume before he left Bain to run the Salt Lake Olympics he appointed someone to run it while he was gone. (HE did own the company) so even if he wasn't actively running Bain at that point he did appoint the person who did and had the power to keep him in his job or replace him.


That being said I would rather assume his involvement was of the he got a report once every few weeks to review while other people actually rain the company.

The other thing is that what companies like Bain do is buy companies that are not doing well and try to revive the parts of them that they think can be brought back while closing down the losers.