14
FORTUNE.COM // APR.1.
KEVIN SNEADER
Recent revelations have subjected consulting giant
McKinsey to awkward scrutiny. Its leader describes what
could change at the influential and secretive firm.
Interview by Adam Lashinsky
KEVIN SNEADER, A 52-YEAR-OLD Glaswegian and 30-year veteran
of McKinsey & Co., became the firm’s global managing partner
in July. He spoke by phone on March 6 with Fortune about the
firm’s very public spate of controversies, from charges of conflicts
of interest in its bankruptcy advisory business to embarrassing
entanglements from Saudi Arabia to South Africa and beyond. The
conversation has been edited for clarity and space; you can read
the full transcript at fortune.com.
FORTUNE: You live in Hong Kong,
have visited San Francisco and
New York recently, and are in
Europe today. How many airline
miles did you log last year?
KEVIN SNEADER: I prefer my
wife not find that out. British
Airways had this wonderful
idea at the end of the year,
which is to send an email that
shows all the places you’ve
been and the number of times
you’ve been around the world.
I stayed away from it.
We’ll mark you down as evasive
for a legitimate reason on that
one. Let’s discuss McKinsey’s
public issues, starting on the
topic of transparency. What
were McKinsey’s 2018 revenues
and profits?
Our revenue is running about
10 billion U.S. dollars.
And profitability?
As a private partnership, it’s
not one of the things we talk
about.
How about the top five revenue-
producing clients?
One of the things that we’ve
always shied away from is
talking about the clients in
the sense of revenues because it’s not the way
we think about them. And it’s not the way I
think our clients think about us. Because what
they’re focused on is what we do for them. I’m
very happy to talk about the kind of work we
do and the way in which we do that work. But
I think actually to disclose who our largest
clients are, that’s something we’ve not yet got
our heads around today.
I think that cuts to the heart of the matter. You are
publicly professing a desire to be transparent,
but the very nature of McKinsey works against
transparency.
Well, first of all, I told you our revenue
number. That’s one number that we certainly
spent no time on in the past. Secondly, I think
we can be more transparent about ourselves
Q+A
ROCK Y START
Sneader
became
M c K i n s e y ’s
chief in July,
inheriting
multiple ethical
crises.
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