Thread by @MartyManley

On McKinsey

I joined the San Francisco office of @McKinsey in 1987. Like members of the CIA and the Royal Household, we called it The Firm.

The Firm values deep professionalism as much as analytic and strategic chops. Values, not formal structures, hold it together.

1/18

These values required strict integrity. Clients interests come first. We fired dishonest or sketchy clients.

Once a teammate claimed to have made a phone call that he had not yet made. The lie was trivial, but the Firm fired him that day. Nobody violated Firm Values.

2/18

The first crack came in 2009 when the SEC charged a colleague I liked, Anil Kumar, with insider trading. Anil was a partner; the partners fired him immediately.

The following year he pled guilty, paid a huge fine, but never seriously repented.

3/18

dealbook.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/mck…

Anil shocked the Firm. But then he testified that the Firm's Managing Director, Rajat Gupta, had passed inside information about Goldman Sachs to the same hedge fund.

The SEC convicted an unrepentant Gupta and sent him to prison.

4/18

dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/05/30/raj…

The Firm went into crisis mode. In 2014, Dominic Barton became Managing Director. He set out to clean up the scandal and fix the professional culture that tolerated felonious behavior among senior partners.

How has that worked out?

5/18

nytimes.com/2014/01/12/bus…

As he took over, a book exposed bad McKinsey advice.

At Enron, a former partner was in jail.
The Firm-advised Time Warner AOL merger was a disaster.
The advice to GM re Japanese competition had failed.
The Internet? Mobile? Embarrassing.

6/18

dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/09/02/in-…

OK, any advisor blows it sometimes. But then came the annus horribilis.

It began when McKinsey sponsored "Davos in the Desert" a big finance conference hosted by Mohammad bin Salman, (aka Mr Bone Saw), who had just murdered reporter Jamal Khashoggi.

7/18
bbc.com/news/business-…

Not a good look. Except that the Firm was serving not the Saudi sovereign wealth fund, but MBS himself.

Worse, they analyzed Twitter to identify the main critics of the regime in social media, for which they eventually apologized.

8/18

nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/…

In December 2018 the @nytimes reported that McKinsey advised Boeing that its plan to mine titanium in India in partnership with a Ukranian oligarch would require bribes to key Indian officials, whose names it listed on a PowerPoint slide.

9/18

nytimes.com/2018/12/30/wor…

This February the Firm agreed to pay $15m to settle a DOJ claim that MIO Partners, a secretive McKinsey investment vehicle, had improperly profited by investing in the shares of companies that the Firm was advising in bankruptcy.

10/18

nytimes.com/2019/02/19/bus…

Later in February, the @nytimes reported that "McKinsey Advised Purdue Pharma How to 'Turbocharge' Opioid Sales, Lawsuit Says"

nytimes.com/2019/02/01/bus…

11/18

@nytimes In June, another controversy over McKinsey's role helping Jacob Zuma, the disgraced President of South Africa, loot the federal treasury.

The Times called it "the biggest mistake in McKinsey’s nine-decade history."

Let's hope.

nytimes.com/2018/06/26/wor…

12/18

@nytimes In July the Firm acknowledged working for @ICEgov, the infamous US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Consultants were outraged. McKinsey resigned the account, having worked for two years and billed $20 million.

nytimes.com/2018/07/09/bus…

14/18

@nytimes @ICEgov Humbled, the Firm's unctuous Managing Director Kevin Sneader promised that the Firm “will not, under any circumstances, engage in any work, anywhere in the world, that advances or assists policies are at odds with our values.”

His job should depend on this promise.

15/18

A month ago, the Times disclosed that McKinsey is "facing a federal criminal investigation of its conduct advising bankrupt companies". One issue is whether McKinsey steered bankrupt clients to pay it large fees ahead of other creditors.

nytimes.com/2019/11/08/bus…?

16/18

Today the details of the ICE project came out. McKinsey helped speed up Trump's deportation process and "proposed cuts in spending on food for migrants, as well as on medical care and supervision of detainees."

Was this not "at odds with our values"?

nytimes.com/2019/12/03/us/…

McKinsey alum treasure our association with the Firm.

Many of us are spittin' outraged that McKinsey has lowered its professional standards as the world demands more integrity, not less.

Please retweet and share with @mckinsey alum and staff who want to help #FixMcKinsey.