When McKinsey Comes to Town

Author Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe
Narrator Ari Fliakos
Publisher Random House
Publish Date 6 October 2022
Run Time 10 hours and 6 minutes
Format Audio
Genre Business and Management, Business ethics and social responsibility, Capitalism, Corporate finance, Corruption in politics, government and society, Economic and financial crises and disasters, Economic history, Economic systems and structures, History, Ownership and organization of enterprises, Politics and government, Popular economics, Social and cultural history, Society and Social Sciences.

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

An explosive exposé of the world's most prestigious and successful management consultancy
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'Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating' Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain

'Every page made my blood boil' Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel laureate, author of The Price of Inequality
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McKinsey earns billions advising almost every major corporation as well as countless governments, including Britain's, the USA's and China's. It boasts of its ability to maximise efficiency while making the world a better place. Its millionaire partners and network of alumni go on to top jobs in the world's most powerful organisations. And yet, shielded by non-disclosure agreements, its work remains largely secret - until now.

In this propulsive investigation, two prize-winning journalists reveal the reality. McKinsey's work includes incentivising the prescription of opioids; ruthless cost-cutting in the NHS; executing Trump's immigration policies (the ones that put children in cages). Meanwhile its vast profits derive from a client roster that has included the coal, tobacco and vaping industries, as well as some of the world's most unsavoury despots. And for the last six decades, McKinsey has been the brains behind many of the most loathed and controversial business practices: mass lay-offs, outsourcing overseas, soaring executive pay, as well as the key innovations that led to the financial crash.

McKinsey proudly insists it is a values-led organisation. When McKinsey Comes to Town is a parable of values betrayed: a devastating portrait of a firm whose work has often made the world more unequal, more corrupt and more dangerous.

© Walt Bogdanich & Michael Forsythe 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Critics Review

Hard-hitting … damning … If you think what management consultants do is to dress up common sense in jargon and flog it as vision to credulous executives, you are, according to [Bogdanich and Forsythe], greatly underestimating their impact

The Times

A masterful work of investigative journalism … to unearth conflicts of interest, corruption, hypocrisy and strategic blunders that read like a prosecutor’s indictment … The fact that neither regulators, the public, nor most of McKinsey’s employees knew about these sordid episodes … is a testament to the authors’ prowess as investigative reporters … superb

Washington Post

Deeply reported … The portrait this book creates is one of a company chasing profits, spreading the gospel of downsizing and offshoring, its leaders virtually unmoored from any guiding principles or moral code … a clear and devastating picture of the management philosophy that helped drive the decline of a stable … middle class over the last 50 years’

The New York Times

Hypocrisy, avarice, ridiculous PowerPoints, aiding and abetting the world’s polluters and drug companies. Every page made my blood boil as I read about McKinsey’s flawed reasoning and the vast profits made from ethically dubious work for governments, polluting companies and big pharma

Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Laureate, author of The Price of Inequality

‘A lengthy and damning charge sheet … makes you so angry you want to chuck rocks at its offices … the evidence the authors winkle out is astonishing … What sustains you are the authors’ eye for detail and killer quotes. If you want to know why top pay for US executives has risen to a record 350 times that of the average worker, look to McKinsey

Sunday Times

A highly informed, fascinating read

The Guardian

A harrowing account of decades of dishonourable exploits

Economist

New York Times reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe’s devastating investigation into the consulting firm uncovers a story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm. … The book’s scrutiny – and measured sense of outrage – is overdue and, you hope, only the beginning

Observer

With McKinsey’s deep reach into business and government around the world, it is inevitably and correctly a focus for discussion on what modern corporations are for … That this internal turmoil has come to light is testament to the depth of sourcing of journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe [whose] reporting of these and other controversies has intensified questions over the firm’s ethics … The debate … is intensely uncomfortable for McKinsey’s leadership’

Financial Times

In government and the private sector, the influence of McKinsey is difficult to overstate. Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe penetrate the firm’s vaunted culture of secrecy to expose the malign ways in which McKinsey’s ‘scientific management’ ends up impacting all of our lives. Panoramic, meticulously reported and ultimately devastating, this is an important book

Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Empire of Pain

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