Notorious: McKinsey consultants are said to be radically saving money – without regard for social standards.Image: Shutterstock
More and more former employees of the controversial US consulting firm are at the top of large Swiss companies. The company is continuously expanding its network – and thus gaining influence.
22.09.2024, 09:4122.09.2024, 09:43
The US consulting firm McKinsey does not enjoy the best reputation in Switzerland. The company, which is known for implementing radical savings and efficiency measures – often euphemisms for layoffs – for its clients, played a role in the downfall of Swissair and Credit Suisse. And recently, McKinsey people also had a hand in Migros’ rigorous savings program.
It is all the more surprising that more and more former McKinsey employees – they are called “Mackies” – are working in top positions at large Swiss companies, such as the «Sunday Newspaper» reported. A non-exhaustive list:
- Vasant NarasimhanNovartis CEO
- Sabine Keller-BusseUBS CEO
- Felix GrafHead of the NZZ Media Group
- Peter SupinoPresident of TX Group
- Thomas WellauerPresident of SIX Group
- Caspar CoppettiCo-founder and CEO of On
- Laura MeyerHead of Hotelplan
- Robert CirilloPost-Chef
- Urs BaumannHead of the Zurich Cantonal Bank
- Ulrich KörnerEx-CS-Boss
- Tidjane ThiamEx-CS-Boss
There are various reasons for the large number of “Mackies”. On the one hand, it is considered extremely helpful for university graduates to be able to show McKinsey experience on their CV.
Despite its generally mediocre reputation, graduates from top universities are beating down the company’s doors – within the industry, the company’s reputation appears to be excellent. McKinsey received over a million applications last year. The company currently employs 45,000 people worldwide. McKinsey years on your CV prove to be a real career boost for ambitious people.
The company also maintains a huge and influential alumni network. It has 55,000 members in 150,000 countries. This provides an obvious advantage: McKinsey people who move into management at a company often hire McKinsey people for consulting purposes. They know each other, they know the way they work.
He is also a Mackie: former CS boss Tidjane Thiam and today a top politician in the Ivory Coast.Image: EPA
Several former McKinsey employees who gave information to the “SonntagsZeitung” praise the qualities that the US company teaches and emphasize that it is easier to work with people who know the McKinsey culture from their own experience. It is extremely performance-oriented and subject to high standards. One former employee says that he has a certain aversion to certain things that the company does, but:
“McKinsey is a fantastic school and it was great for me to work there.”
One of the ways the company brings young people on board is by offering them high salaries. McKinsey is essentially throwing money at young people, says the former employee. It takes “a lot of steadfastness and a clear moral compass to turn this down.”
Even though the company has an absolute performance culture and employees who do not manage to get promoted within a certain time period have to, or at least should, leave the company, McKinsey attaches great importance to ensuring that people leave without resentment.
“They do everything they can to ensure that people leave on good terms.”
The reason is obvious: Whatever the person does afterwards, it is useful to have positive-minded contacts in a wide variety of companies and economic sectors.
The majority of current and former employees reject the known accusations against the US company. It is not always about cost-cutting programs, often they build up entire new companies and create jobs in the process. Nevertheless, it is clear that sometimes “tough decisions” have to be made in order to make companies competitive, says a consultant employed in Zurich.
In response to the accusation that his company uses savings programs to achieve higher returns without paying any attention to employees, McKinsey Switzerland boss Michael Steinmann says that the focus is always on “strengthening competitiveness.” This can be achieved through savings or growth, and McKinsey uses both strategies. However, the savings strategies have met with a much greater response from the public.
(con)
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