Michael Forsythe

Walt Bogdanich

An explosive exposé of McKinsey & Company - the world's largest, most prestigious, most successful management consultancy - revealing its shady practices, its insidious influence on global business and government, and its terrible impact on employees and citizens around the world. McKinsey earns billions for its advice on enhancing efficiency and maximising profit, and has worked for 80 per cent of the companies in the Fortune 500 - basically every major corporation in the world - and countless governments and militaries, including our own. But, shielded by NDAs, McKinsey has escaped public scrutiny - until now. In When McKinsey Comes to Town, prize-winning investigative journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe show how the company's advice often boils down to major cost-cutting, including redundancies and maintenance reductions, to drive-up short-term profits, boosting the stock price and the wealth of the executives who hire them at the expense of workers and safety measures. Some of McKinsey's other work has included incentivising the most prolific and lax prescribers of opioids to prescribe more of them, and executing Trump's immigration policies; the ones that resulted in children being separated from their parents and held in cages. The book also tells how McKinsey has been employed by the UK government from the 1970s onwards to reorganise the National Health Service. The firm was employed by the regulators who oversaw its restructure; key McKinsey personnel were hired into top NHS jobs, who then employed McKinsey to manage the new health service. McKinsey's primary advice was to scrap tens of thousands of jobs and to suggest ending what were deemed 'non-essential' surgeries - like hysterectomies - to save costs. And when it became apparent that austerity and the NHS was a mix that didn't work, guess who was hired to undo the very legislation they had designed and implemented? Bogdanich and Forsythe have penetrated the veil of secrecy surrounding McKinsey by conducting hundreds of interviews, obtaining tens of thousands of revelatory documents and following rule number one of investigative reporting: follow the money. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous.

The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

When McKinsey Comes to Town

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • An explosive, deeply reported exposé of McKinsey & Company, the international consulting firm that advises corporations and governments, that highlights the often drastic impact of its work on employees and citizens around the world "Meticulously reported, and ultimately devastating, this is an important book." —Patrick Radden Keefe, New York Times bestselling author of Empire of Pain and Say Nothing McKinsey & Company is the most prestigious consulting company in the world, earning billions of dollars in fees from major corporations and governments who turn to it to maximize their profits and enhance efficiency. McKinsey's vaunted statement of values asserts that its role is to make the world a better place, and its reputation for excellence and discretion attracts top talent from universities around the world. But what does it actually do? In When McKinsey Comes to Town, two prizewinning investigative journalists have written a portrait of the company sharply at odds with its public image. Often McKinsey's advice boils down to major cost-cutting, including layoffs and maintenance reductions, to drive up short-term profits, thereby boosting a company's stock price and the wealth of its executives who hire it, at the expense of workers and safety measures. McKinsey collects millions of dollars advising government agencies that also regulate McKinsey's corporate clients. And the firm frequently advises competitors in the same industries, but denies that this presents any conflict of interest. In one telling example, McKinsey advised a Chinese engineering company allied with the communist government which constructed artificial islands, now used as staging grounds for the Chinese Navy—while at the same time taking tens of millions of dollars from the Pentagon, whose chief aim is to counter Chinese aggression. Shielded by NDAs, McKinsey has escaped public scrutiny despite its role in advising tobacco and vaping companies, purveyors of opioids, repressive governments, and oil companies. McKinsey helped insurance companies' boost their profits by making it incredibly difficult for accident victims to get payments; worked its U.S. government contacts to let Wall Street firms evade scrutiny; enabled corruption in developing countries such as South Africa; undermined health-care programs in states across the country. And much more. Bogdanich and Forsythe have penetrated the veil of secrecy surrounding McKinsey by conducting hundreds of interviews, obtaining tens of thousands of revelatory documents, and following rule #1 of investigative reporting: Follow the money. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a landmark work of investigative reporting that amounts to a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt, and more dangerous.

Walt Bogdanich

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