Our firm is designed to operate as one—a single global partnership united by a strong set of values, including a deep commitment to diversity, and a common purpose: to create positive, enduring change in the world.

McKinsey is led globally by our managing partner; our elected board of directors, known as the Shareholders Council; a global leadership team known as the Acceleration Team; and the leaders of our offices and practices.

We’ve always been big believers in the growth potential of our clients. Today, we’re privileged to work with organizations that are on a new growth journey, one that pursues sustainability, inclusion, and economic growth, all at the same time.

We are a values-driven organization and work to meet the highest professional and ethical standards.

We are committed to creating positive, enduring change through our work with clients and the way we run our firm. We regularly evaluate and update our governance to ensure our firm today stays true to our purpose, mission, and values.

To help create positive, enduring change in the world.

To help our clients make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in their performance and to build a great firm that attracts, develops, excites, and retains exceptional people

We are a values-driven organization. Our values reflect the thinking of our founder, James O. McKinsey, and Marvin Bower, managing director from 1950 to 1967, who was a major force in shaping the firm. Our values have been updated in small ways to reflect the changing times. They inform both our long-term strategy as a firm and the way we serve our clients on a daily basis. We put aside one day a year to reflect as a group on what our values mean to both our work and our lives.

Adhere to the highest professional standards

•            put client interests ahead of our firm’s

•            maintain high standards and conditions for client service

•            observe high ethical standards

•            preserve client confidences

•            maintain an independent perspective

•            manage client and firm resources cost-effectively

Improve our clients’ performance significantly

•            follow the top-management approach

•            pursue holistic impact

•            use our global network to deliver the best of our firm to all clients

•            bring innovations in management practice to clients

•            build client capabilities to sustain improvement

•            build enduring relationships based on trust

Create an unrivaled environment for exceptional people

•            be nonhierarchical and inclusive

•            sustain a caring meritocracy

•            develop one another through apprenticeship and mentoring

•            uphold the obligations to engage and dissent

•            embrace diverse perspectives with curiosity and respect

•            govern ourselves as a “one firm” partnership

We are dedicated to managing our firm and working with our clients in ways that benefit individuals, communities, and the environments they live in.

Diversity, equity & inclusion

Prioritizing these moral imperatives within our firm, in business, and in society.

Social responsibility

Addressing societal challenges and delivering on our purpose.

Environmental sustainability

Working internally and with our clients to help protect the planet.

We help our clients create more than 1 million net new jobs each year.

And we partner with organizations dedicated to increasing economic mobility and access to jobs.

Opportunity Coalition

We believe the world needs sustainable and inclusive growth, and that no community should be left behind. We’re proud to be among the founder members of this coalition with the potential to make a dent in economic disparities—and the opportunity to create an economy that works for everyone.

Ownership Works

We’re a founding member of this not-for-profit that implements broad-based employee ownership programs, positioning companies to share wealth with low-and-moderate income households and people of color, and helping drive equitable wealth creation.

JobsOhio

Over the last 11 years, JobsOhio has created and retained nearly 1 million jobs through a first-of-its-kind private economic development model. In 2019 JobsOhio expanded its scope to add an inclusive economic development strategy to improve the quality of life for all Ohioans. McKinsey is proud to work with organizations like JobsOhio to enhance the lives and livelihoods of those in our communities.

Paper Ceiling

We’re part of a collaboration to champion more inclusive, skills-based hiring practices to help overcome barriers to economic mobility by removing the “paper ceiling” – the invisible barrier that workers without a degree face.

We have helped reskill or upskill more than 1 million people.

And we make training and education accessible to millions more through initiatives we founded

and support.

Rework America Alliance

We’re helping to build and deploy tools to create scale and coordination across the US reskilling ecosystem, helping millions of Americans in low-income roles move into more resilient, higher-paying jobs, regardless of their educational background.

Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity

We are a founding member and pro-bono supporter of the Taskforce, providing the analytical foundation and facilitation to nearly 40 public, private, two-year, four-year, community colleges, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities to launch initiatives to ensure student success in the post-pandemic economy, and reimagine how higher education is delivered.

Generation

We founded this independent not-for-profit organization to transform people’s lives and communities through the power of stable, meaningful work. Generation has trained and placed more than 67,000 people who face systemic barriers to employment into jobs across 40 professions in 16 countries since its launch, with an average 3-4x wage increase.

Homeboy Industries

We're helping the largest gang rehabilitation and re-entry program in the world scale its innovative model of therapeutic wraparound services, job training and social enterprises to make a positive impact on even more communities and individuals.

We’re working toward racial equity, starting with a $200M pro bono commitment.

And we’re helping to grow diverse leaders, investing in research to inform concrete solutions, and taking action in local communities.

10 Actions

In 2020, we committed to ten actions to accelerate change within our firm and combat racism across the world. We’ve focused on building Black leadership within our organization and beyond, identifying solutions for racial equity through data-based research, and investing in social change within our wider community.

Connected Leaders Academy

More than 34,000 mid-tenure and senior leaders at more than 800 organizations across industries have enrolled in our Connected Leaders Academy. They are developing new capabilities, mindsets, and behaviors while building peer networks and receiving the sponsorship they need to achieve their career ambitions.

Next 1B

We’re bringing together McKinsey professional development and industry expertise—along with an unrivaled network of successful Black founders, major retailers, and investors—to help Black-owned brands unlock the next phase of growthsupporting companies on the path to “unicorn” status of a $1 billion valuation.

Institute for Black Economic Mobility

A McKinsey think-and-do tank dedicated to advancing racial equity and inclusive growth globally. Our mission is to help private, public, and social-sector leaders take coordinated action to accelerate economic opportunity for Black individuals and communities.

We’re helping our clients lead on sustainable and inclusive growth

• Our clients contribute 20% of global GDP growth
• Our clients contribute 80% of reported CO2 emissions reductions
• Our clients create 1M jobs each year

There is a way to do sustainable and inclusive strategies that enable growth, that allow you to win.

—Tiffany Burns, Senior Partner, Atlanta

Helping our clients grow is fundamental. Within a context of unrelenting change, growth takes intention, and bigger, bolder bets. We build new businesses, lead technology transformations, and create sustainable innovations together with the most influential companies in the world.

Climate technology is the single most important contributor to the decarbonization transition. We’re helping leaders embrace and scale it to drive sustainable growth. 

—Bernd Heid, Senior Partner, Cologne

Sustainability is an organizing principle for any modern business, and the challenges are both urgent and daunting. Every day, we work alongside our clients to accelerate their transition to net zero emissions by 2050—or sooner.

Some of our most fulfilling work is building the skills of the employees of our clients. You see the greatest joy when they’ve mastered a new technical skill or a new way of working.

—Liz Hilton Segel, Senior Partner, New York

Inclusion allows all people and all businesses to contribute and prosper in a growing economy. From identifying underserved markets to collaborative learning to digital capability centers, we help our clients seize the dual opportunity of serving new consumers and upskilling current employees.