FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sunday 25 February 2018
Kevin Sneader has been elected the new global managing partner of McKinsey & Company. Kevin was elected by the firm’s more than 560 senior partners, and will serve a three-year term beginning on 1 July 2018. He will be the twelfth partner to lead McKinsey since its founding in 1926.
Kevin, 51, is currently McKinsey’s Asia chairman, based in Hong Kong, and will follow Dominic Barton as global managing partner. During Dominic’s nine-year tenure, the firm experienced accelerating innovation and growth. McKinsey has expanded from 1,100 partners in 2007 to more than 2,000 today, and has offices in 127 cities in 65 countries.
Consistently named the world’s most prestigious consulting firm, McKinsey continues to deliver the top management advice leaders have trusted for nearly a century. At the same time, with more than 27,000 people and a vastly expanded range of services, the firm now also works side-by-side with clients, at every level of their organizations, serving as an “impact partner” to help them build their capabilities and execute their strategies. McKinsey today serves more than 2,000 institutions, including 90 of the top 100 corporations worldwide, according to Forbes.
Kevin Sneader said:
“More than half of what McKinsey does today did not exist even five years ago. Yet even as our firm has grown and innovated, we remain committed to McKinsey’s fundamental values – and one of those values is partnership. I’m humbled to have earned the trust of my partners and colleagues, and look forward to working with them to deepen our impact for all our clients.”
Kevin, a British citizen, has worked at McKinsey for 26 years, joining the firm in London in 1989. He was educated at Harvard Business School, where he was both a Baker and a Fulbright Scholar, and at the University of Glasgow. He is a member of the firm’s global Operating Committee and previously chaired the Client Committee of its Shareholders Council.
During his time at McKinsey, Kevin has lived and worked in Beijing, Paris, and Hong Kong, as well as in the United States, where he was managing partner of McKinsey’s Washington DC, New Jersey, and Philadelphia offices. Prior to taking up his Asia regional role, in 2014, he served as UK and Ireland managing partner. He has worked across a broad range of industries, including consumer goods, retail, healthcare, and the public sector. Learn more about Kevin here.
Current global managing partner Dominic Barton said:
“Since its founding in 1926, McKinsey has operated with a dual mission: to deliver lasting and substantial impact for our clients, and to create an unrivaled environment for exceptional talent. I know that Kevin will retain the standards, principles, and integrity that are our hallmark while also continuing to innovate our firm to meet our clients’ changing needs.”
Over the past decade, McKinsey has broadened its offerings in areas such as digital transformation, advanced analytics, design, and implementation to help clients succeed in a rapidly evolving business context.
McKinsey has built on its track record as an employer of choice for top talent by recruiting and developing a broad range of talent profiles to support these new capabilities. McKinsey today has more than 3,000 analytics experts, software developers, designers, and seasoned implementation consultants, and is on pace to double this number by the end of 2018. McKinsey has made more than a dozen acquisitions in the past few years, integrating best-in-class companies like LUNAR, QuantumBlack, and Veryday. More broadly, McKinsey is ranked as the #1 consulting firm in all geographies by Vault.
Meanwhile, McKinsey is committed to social impact through client work, pro bono projects, and research on critical issues. In 2014, for example, the firm founded Generation, a nonprofit dedicated to addressing youth unemployment. Working closely with employers, Generation recruits, trains, and places young people in jobs: 83% of Generation graduates are employed within 90 days of the program’s completion. Generation has expanded rapidly and is today helping prepare young people for careers in 63 cities in seven countries—making Generation the largest global demand-driven youth employment program.
Kevin Sneader said:
“Dominic has challenged us to disrupt ourselves and spur innovation throughout our firm during his tenure. The firm you see today is still classically McKinsey, but what we are able to do for our clients, and the impact we have, continues to redefine the profession of management consulting.”
- Ends -
For more information, please contact
Steve John – Steve_John@mckinsey.com / +44 7580 954 497
DJ Carella – DJ_Carella@mckinsey.com / +1 202 662 1168
Notes to the Editor
About the election process
Candidates are nominated and elected by McKinsey’s senior partners. The election is a staged process:
1) In the nomination round, senior partners nominated seven candidates by preference.
2) In the second round, a slate comprised the 10 candidates (from the nomination round) who received the greatest number of absolute votes. Senior partners voted in order of preference.
3) In the final round, the two strongest candidates from the second round, as defined using the Single Transferable Voting Method, stood for a final vote. Kevin Sneader received a majority of votes and was elected.
The election of McKinsey’s global managing partner was conducted by an independent third-party firm. The election was overseen by an Election Administration Committee, composed of former senior partners of the firm (i.e., ineligible to vote) who remain affiliated with the firm and/or current senior partners who are ineligible to serve as managing partner.