Inside the Strategy Room

This shift from industry sectors to customer-focused ecosystems may be the largest economic reorganization in history. What role will your company play?  Global ecosystems are breaking down barriers separating traditional industries and organizing the economy around key customer needs. In this episode of Inside the Strategy Room, the co-authors of the new book The Ecosystem Economy: How to Lead in...

In this episode, we share advice and insights for new CEOs about how they can make a strong start in the role. Sean Brown is joined by Carolyn Dewar , a senior partner in our San Francisco office who is the founder and co-leader of our CEO Excellence Practice. She is also a co-author of last year’s NY Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Res...

The chairman, CEO, and co-founder of the global investment management firm traces his journey as a business leader, financial innovator, and philanthropist. Stephen Schwarzman co-founded The Blackstone Group in 1985 and grew it into one of the largest investment firms in the world, with nearly $1 trillion in assets under management and businesses in private equity, real estate, and credit, among o...

The next generation of the internet contains online capabilities and technologies that promise to transform business models. Our goal today is to demystify these technologies, interrogate the many myths around Web3, and discover where the current and future business opportunities lie. Joining us are Ian De Bode , who leads our Web3 efforts in North America, and Matt Higginson , a partner in our Bo...

If you’re not in the tech industry, developing your own software may seem like an adjacency too far. But it’s just one of the things you may need to do today to execute a successful digital transformation. In this episode, we’re joined by senior partners Rodney Zemmel and Kate Smaje who co-lead McKinsey Digital. We were also joined by Laura LaBerge, a senior expert in our Stamford office, who unti...

We're joined by Patrick Lammers, chief operating officer for customer solutions, at E.ON , one of Europe’s leading energy providers. Patrick explains how he fosters growth during a historic, industrywide transition to renewable power. E.ON is a German multinational serving more than 50 million customers throughout Europe. Like every other major European utility, E.ON is contending with supply chai...

Ankur Agrawal joins Sean Brown to discuss how finance leaders can help promote talent development within their organizations. Ankur is a partner in our New York office and one of the leaders of our Healthcare Practice. In this episode, he talks with Sean about how CFOs have access to data, a cross-functional perspective, and an expanding role as value manager and strategy partner. They therefore h...

Bill George joins us to share his insights on authentic leadership–the theme of the latest edition of his best-selling book True North: Emerging Leader Edition .  Bill is the former chairman and CEO of medical-device company Medtronic and the author of four best-selling books on leadership. He is currently an Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, where he's taught leadership since 2004. Bil...

Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian joins us Inside the Strategy Room for a wide-ranging conversation where he discusses how he has grown Google's cloud business, how he manages innovation, and how he thinks about talent management. Thomas also shares insights on sustainability and the future of artificial intelligence and machine learning. This episode is an excerpt of a conversation Thomas and Adrian...

Israel’s start-up ecosystem is already a powerhouse—how can the country continue to scale it up? This episode is the second on Israel’s vibrant start-up scene, and a continuation of McKinsey innovation leader Erik Roth 's conversation with Avi Hasson and Chemi Peres.  Hasson leads a not-for-profit, Startup Nation Central, that promotes Israel’s start-up sector, while Peres leads a venture capital...

Despite its small domestic market, Israel has managed to build a vibrant start-up scene that competes with those of much larger countries. In this episode, two leaders of Israel’s innovation culture, Avi Hasson and Chemi Peres, talk with McKinsey’s innovation leader Erik Roth in this first in a series of episodes on innovation in Israel. Hasson leads a not-for-profit, Startup Nation Central, that...

The risk and ambiguity inherent in innovation can make employees shy away from it. Creating an innovation culture where risk-taking is embraced must start at the top. Most executives will agree that fear—of criticism, of uncertainty, of career consequences—can paralyze innovation. In this episode, three innovation experts discuss ways to create an environment of psychological safety that rewards c...

AI tools can help executives avoid biases in decisions, pull insights out of oceans of data, and make strategic choices more quickly. And that’s just the beginning. Can machines automate strategy development? The short answer is no. However, there are numerous aspects of strategists’ work where AI and advanced analytics tools can already bring enormous value. Yuval Atsmon is a senior partner who l...

One of the surest signs of a thriving enterprise is robust and consistent revenue growth. That has not been easy to accomplish over the past 15 years. Now, with a slowing global economy, rising inflation, and geopolitical uncertainty, growth may become more elusive still. To help business leaders buck these trends, our guests Chris Bradley and Rebecca Doherty conducted an in-depth study of the gro...

In this episode we discuss strategy in an age of volatility. How are business leaders honing their edge in three critical areas–insights, commitment, and execution–to successfully navigate this period of uncertainty? How should executives manage the downside while aggressively pursuing the upside in times of crisis and disruption? To answer these questions, Sean Brown is joined by Michael Birshan...

Corporate resilience requires both protecting against the downside and preparing to capture the upside from any shocks.  In this episode, three experts discuss the board's role in building that resilience. Asutosh Padhi is a senior partner in our Chicago office who helps industrial companies with functional, business unit, and enterprise-wide transformations. Celia Huber , a senior partner in our...

The elements of an effective performance-management system are relatively simple, but integrating them into a business’ fundamental operating system can be more complex than it seems. In this episode, we discuss recent innovations in performance management that business leaders can implement across the planning and performance management cycle. We share best practices for how to incorporate energy...

Few business leaders have more experience in M&A than Brad Jacobs. Over a four-decade-plus career, he created several billion-dollar corporations. The most recent three he built largely through acquisitions: United Rentals, an industrial equipment rental company; United Waste Systems, involved in garbage collection; and XPO, the logistics company he currently leads. At both United Rentals and Unit...

Growth is something every CEO and business leader aspires to deliver, but for many, it remains elusive. In this episode, Biljana Cvetanovski, Erik Roth, and Jill Zucker join Sean Brown to discuss the steps leaders can take to help foster sustainable, inclusive growth within their organizations. Biljana, Erik, and Jill are the co-authors of the recent Mckinsey.com article, ‘Choosing to grow: the le...

In this episode, we hear from Richard Rumelt. Richard has been called, “A giant in the field of strategy.” He is the Harry and Elsa Kunin Chair Emeritus at the UCLA Anderson School of Management and a founding member and former president of the Strategic Management Society. He is also the author of Good Strategy/Bad Strategy: The Difference and Why it Matters, and in this episode he’ll explain how...

Resource allocation decisions are one of the clearest manifestations of a company’s strategic choices. By embedding ESG (or environmental, social, and governance) metrics and targets into those decisions, business leaders can progress from talking about ESG targets to intentionally creating the conditions by which those targets can be achieved. To discuss how to effectively allocate resources towa...

In this episode, we hear from McKinsey senior partner Miklós Dietz on the subject of the forthcoming book he has coauthored with Venkat Atluri titled, ‘The Ecosystem Economy: How to Lead in the New Age of Sectors Without Borders.’ The book offers an incisive and eye-opening look at the emerging ecosystem economy and what it means for companies used to familiar sector silos. We recorded Miklós spea...

In this episode, Tim Koller joins us again for the second of our two-part series celebrating two decades of McKinsey on Finance. Tim is the co-author of the best-selling book, Valuation, and helped to launch and steer our publication, McKinsey on Finance, through 80 issues over the past 20 years. Tim reflects on changes in the corporate finance and valuation landscape that have taken place over th...

In this episode we celebrate the 20th anniversary of our quarterly journal, McKinsey on Finance. We discuss the timeless truths of corporate finance, highlight three urgent challenges facing companies today, and look at how the fundamentals of finance can help business leaders address them. Sean Brown is joined by Tim Koller, a partner in our Denver office who oversees McKinsey on Finance and help...

In this episode, we lay out the challenges that soaring inflation presents for business leaders and chart a path forward. We are joined by two authors of a recent McKinsey Quarterly article, ‘Navigating inflation: A new playbook for CEOs’. Ezra Greenberg is a partner in our Stamford, Connecticut office and co-leads our strategic transformation services work in North America. He also leads our work...