the darkish aspect of the consulting large | EUROtoday

The e-book. “There is no secret society shaping every major decision or determining the course of human history. That said, there is McKinsey & Company”. The phrases are these of a former marketing consultant for the American consulting large. They evoke each the facility of the agency and its potential to work within the shadows. Two main traits of the corporate that are exactly highlighted in a piece by two journalists from New York Times, Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe.

Over the course of a long-term investigation, they suggest, in McKinsey, for higher and for worse (Buchet-Chastel, 2023), an edifying dive into the guts of the multinational, counting on quite a few testimonies and inside paperwork to disclose the sources of its energy, its methods of conquest and the numerous grey areas of its actions.

McKinsey has succeeded, in a century, in changing into a key participant in consulting, the eminence grise of public powers and personal firms throughout the planet. She constructed her repute on her potential to “quantify [les] issue[s] » and to propose sharp cost reduction policies, allowing profits to be maximized. At the same time, she has woven a web across the global economic and political spheres with striking ease. The network of former McKinsey consultants is sprawling, many of them continuing their careers at the head of public or private institutions.

Conflicts of interest

Over the years, the company has methodically and coldly conquered numerous markets, supporting players with sometimes questionable methods. The speeches around “values” carried out by the group have usually been contradicted by the info. “Contrary to the firm's public statements that it was 'committed to protecting the planet', the firm was proud to help coal mines become more profitable”, clarify the authors. They proceed: “By serving not only tobacco and vaping, but also (…) opioids, the firm has discreetly been able to profit greatly from the addiction economy. » Likewise, she “increasingly works for authoritarian governments around the world or for public companies that help consolidate their power”.

The investigation additionally reveals that this frantic conquest of recent prospects has repeatedly raised the query of conflicts of curiosity. “Working for each the regulator and the regulated is an integral a part of the modus operandi from McKinsey », notice MM. Bogdanich and Forsythe. Thus, McKinsey was capable of concurrently have as purchasers American pharmaceutical firms and the Food and Drug Administration, the federal company which ensures the protection of medication approved on the market within the nation.

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