“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 form any guiding principles or moral code…a clear and devastating picture of the management philosophy that helped drive the decline of a stable American middle class over the last 50 years.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe shatter the luminous image of McKinsey & Co…In a masterful work of investigative journalism building on their reporting for the New York Times, Bogdanich and Forsythe pierce through McKinsey’s “culture of secrecy…Superb”
—The Washington Post
“The nearly century-old McKinsey & Company describes itself as the world’s largest consulting firm. Sounds benign, doesn’t it? Yet McKinsey’s sway over some of the most influential industries and domestic and foreign government agencies is a manifestation of corruption and greed down to the molecular level. Cleverly employing a panoply of NDAs and other protective legal tools, McKinsey further cloaks itself behind a thick scrum of obfuscating corporate-speak peppered throughout its infamous PowerPoint slide decks. With clients in energy and entertainment, the FDA and the NBA, Saudi Arabia and South Africa, McKinsey touts its skill at increasing profitability and efficiency, chiefly through draconian, often dangerous, staff cutbacks and price- cutting. Such advice, however, comes with a hefty price tag, yet when a client becomes mired in scandal, often resulting from McKinsey’s recommendations, the company’s fingerprints are nowhere to be found. Recipients of multiple prestigious prizes for their far-reaching investigative journalism, Bogdanich and Forsythe pull back the curtain on the unseen depths of McKinsey’s pernicious and insidious influence. Thanks to their unprecedented level of access to crucial records and key insider accounts, this monumental corporate exposé will do for management consulting what Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain (2021) did for the opioid epidemic and the Sacklers.”
—Booklist
“Two of the finest investigative reporters in the business got behind the wall of secrecy erected by one the world’s most influential companies. WHEN MCKINSEY COMES TO TOWN is a revelatory – and disturbing – portrait of a powerful firm whose vaunted reputation is belied by its actions.”
—Jane Mayer, New York Times bestselling author of THE DARK SIDE and DARK MONEY
“In government and the private sector, in the United States and around the world, the influence of McKinsey is difficult to overstate. Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe penetrate the firm’s vaunted culture of secrecy to expose the complicity of business consultants in abetting the conduct of unsavory clients — from despots to opioid pushers — and 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, New York Times bestselling author of SAY NOTHING and EMPIRE OF PAIN
“Bogdanich and Forsythe show how McKinsey, rather than optimizing social welfare, optimizes corporate profits and greed. In doing so the Firm has become a super spreader of corporate misdeed and contributed to America’s growing inequality problem. Hypocrisy, avarice, ridiculous power points, 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 in economics 2011 and University Professor, Columbia University
“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. The book is a devastating account of McKinsey’s influence at the top levels of government and industry. In arresting detail Bogdanich and Forsythe show how McKinsey has enabled—and profited from—one bad actor after another, from American opioid and cigarette makers to Russian oligarchs and state monopolies to Saudi Arabia’s accused murderer-prince, Mohammed bin Salman, even while boasting that it’s making the world a better place. The book is a tour de force of investigative reporting.”
—James B. Stewart, New York Times bestselling author of Den of Thieves and Bloomberg Professor of Business Journalism at Columbia University
