When McKinsey Comes to Town

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 * '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 * 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 * A harrowing account of decades of dishonourable exploits * Economist * 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 * Devastating ... a story of secrecy, delusion and untold harm ... The result of a five-year investigation by two senior New York Times reporters ... reveal[s] how this erosion of McKinsey core values ... has led the company into many morally bankrupt places ... No doubt McKinsey does a great deal of ethical and effective 'engagement' - it has released a statement suggesting that this book does not represent its values - but that record is seriously undermined in successive chapters here * 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 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 Two of the finest investigative reporters in the business got behind the wall of secrecy erected by one the world's most influential companies. A revelatory - and disturbing - portrait of a powerful firm whose vaunted reputation is belied by its actions -- Jane Mayer, author of The Dark Side After the publication of When McKinsey Comes to Town, the secretive consulting firm is going to need its own management consultant to address the damage. A tour de force of investigative reporting -- James B. Stewart, author of Den of Thieves