Who Gets to Decide? McKinsey, Power, and Public Consequences

From its perch atop the global consulting industry,  McKinsey & Company gives advice that shapes corporate strategy, government policy, and public institutions around the world. Its authority rests on unparalleled connections to leaders and access to information, much of it shielded from public view. Its influence and its deep-rooted culture of secrecy raise urgent questions about what happens behind closed doors and who should be held responsible when its advice ends up harming the public.

On November 20, the Corporations and Society Initiative (CASI) at Stanford Graduate School of Business hosted New York Times investigative reporters Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe for a discussion of their book When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm. Drawing on Bogdanich’s three Pulitzers and Forsythe’s extensive international reporting, the book examines McKinsey’s practices and the consequences of some of its most significant consulting engagements. Student moderator Wesley Cash set the stage for a candid conversation about the role consulting firms play in shaping decisions that affect millions.

Bogdanich and Forsythe described how their interest in McKinsey can be traced back to a series of articles they wrote for The New York Times.  After the 2016 election, Bogdanich grew curious about McKinsey’s growing influence and spent more than a year persuading his editors to let him investigate the firm. Once their reporting began, the pair uncovered revealing stories spanning most business sectors and countries from South Africa to China and Russia. Looking at McKinsey’s relationship with the U.S. government, they found much to write about in the work McKinsey did for the  Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

“People from McKinsey started coming forward and telling us their stories,” Forsythe explained. “We never really set out to write a book at all. It was just a reporting project.”

As Bogdanich put it, the investigation grew because “we followed our curiosity.”

When asked to distill the core argument of When McKinsey Comes to Town, Forsythe explained that the common line across its many chapters is the harm experienced by the broader public, whether in finance, pharmaceuticals, immigration enforcement, or the firm’s far-reaching overseas work. The book focuses on the “planes that crash,” as Walt Bogdanich put it, not because McKinsey lacks talented or well-intentioned people, but because its influence frequently involves decisions that shape public welfare. Both journalists emphasized that they are not in the business of discouraging anyone from working at the company; many of their friends do, and McKinsey continues to attract young recruits with a genuine desire to contribute to meaningful global projects.

“McKinsey in some ways is almost a victim of its recruiting process,” Forsythe explained. “There are case studies during the recruiting process that give you these moral issues dealing with the environment, or how to distribute vaccines in Nigeria, things like this. McKinsey does try to sell itself to young associates as a moral firm that does good.”

Former consultants, they noted, often said they experienced ‘cognitive dissonance’ when assignments diverged from the values that first drew them in. Those moments motivated several insiders to speak out. Their accounts shaped some of the book’s most compelling chapters and revealed the tensions that arise within institutions that promote themselves as engines of global good while sometimes contributing to public harm.

After examining the consequences of some of McKinsey’s engagements, a natural question emerges: are these controversies isolated missteps, or do they point to deeper structural problems? To answer this, Forsythe described a pattern that senior insiders had observed for years. As the firm expanded across continents, its partnership model created semi-autonomous “fiefdoms” with limited external oversight. Former partners told the journalists that rapid growth, rising compensation pressures, and increasing financialization undermined the firm’s cohesion. In an environment where offices operated largely independently and many partners barely knew one another, decisions were often made without a shared sense of responsibility.

Bogdanich added that one of McKinsey’s internal values appears harmless on the surface, but can be quite problematic.  “As those of you who have worked there know, the values are on the wall. And when we checked in, the number one value was: put your clients interest first.”

“That sounds really good on one level, and you should, they're paying you the money,” he argued. “But when your client is Purdue Pharma or some evil corporation doing bad things, then that's not a good policy to follow.”

Consultants, he said, often justified their involvement by viewing themselves as advisers rather than decision-makers. This framing distanced McKinsey from the real-world consequences of its recommendations. Bogdanich and Forsythe argued that the firm’s structure, incentives, and narrowly defined sense of obligation systemically create dynamics that lead to harms.

The discussion then turned to the broader question of what professional services firms owe to others beyond their clients. Forsythe noted that consulting occupies a unique place among professional services, such as law and accounting, because it lacks codified rules, licensing requirements, and enforceable ethical standards.

“Consulting is completely optional and it's also the one place where there is no professional set of rules or laws, so there's a real difference,” he said. “I think because there is that difference, it does make looking at these firms a little more complicated.”

One issue related to this is McKinsey’s practice of advising both regulators and the industries they oversee, most notably its simultaneous work for the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and Purdue Pharma. Asked whether change must come from stronger regulation or internal reforms, Bogdanich said no consensus exists. With no clear solutions in sight, navigating these issues often comes down to the decisions people make on the ground.

“We bring our own values to the job, and we have to speak up, and we have to defend them and have the courage to speak out. And that can be hard,” he said.

Forsythe noted that while McKinsey has stepped back from opioid and tobacco work and adopted stricter client-screening processes, major gaps persist. Government oversight is still hampered by secrecy; public agencies that hire McKinsey often sign contracts that prevent them from disclosing basic information about the firm’s work. As a result, Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests frequently result in heavily redacted documents being produced. McKinsey is the one to decide, not the government, what the public can know. This lack of transparency, the journalists argued, shows why accountability remains an issue.

“If there's one quality that I think is most common among the best investigative reporters, it's a low threshold of indignation,” Bogdanich explained. “We get ticked off when we see things that aren't right. And we want to do something about it.”

The reporters also reflected on the uneasy role journalists now play in an era of declining public trust. Investigative reporting remains critical for exposing systemic failures, yet its impact is often blunted in a fragmented information environment.

“I think one of the great tragedies of our time is that people no longer really believe what they read,” Bogdanich said. “How are we going to fix the problems that we have if they don't believe journalists who are committed to the truth without fear or favor? If you don't believe that, then what are you going to do?”

Forsythe noted that even amid skepticism, deeply reported stories still shift public understanding. Far more people now grasp the scope of McKinsey’s involvement in areas like opioids because journalism brought these details to light. Public scrutiny has pushed the firm to adopt stronger client reviews and limit work in certain industries.

The discussion returned to a central question: in a world where consultants influence decisions across government and industry, who is accountable for the outcomes? Bogdanich noted that McKinsey’s influence can be hard to trace because the firm moves “like a ghost” through decision-making processes, often leaving little documentation.

“They really exist to some degree in providing cover for people in the C-suite who have to make difficult decisions,” he said. “We are going to lay off 1,000 people, well, McKinsey told us that that's what we should do.”

Forsythe added that boundaries become even more blurred when consultants are embedded inside government ministries, sometimes with official government email addresses, effectively functioning as part of the bureaucracy. This occurs in both authoritarian and democratic systems and has at times placed McKinsey on both sides of sensitive geopolitical issues, such as advising entities involved in China’s island-building while also consulting for the U.S. Pentagon. Without conflict-of-interest rules similar to those in law or accounting, consultants can occupy spaces where public authority and private pursuits clash.

Bogdanich isn’t convinced by McKinsey’s claims that its decentralized structure and information walls prevent conflicts. Even the appearance of serving “different masters,” he said, can erode trust. Forsythe pointed to the Purdue Pharma settlement, one of the few moments when internal documents became public, revealing that safeguards often failed in practice. Senior partners advised multiple opioid manufacturers while others used FDA connections to win additional clients. In some instances, consultants advised both the FDA and Purdue at the same time.

The deeper issue, they argued, is opacity. Confidential engagements make it difficult for journalists, policymakers, and the public to understand how consulting advice shapes decisions across sectors. While confidentiality may be appropriate for corporate clients, Bogdanich argued that it should not be used to shield taxpayer-funded work from public scrutiny.

Reflecting on the three years since the book’s release, Bogdanich said what remains most troubling is not ignorance but awareness: McKinsey consultants understood the dangers associated with opioids, tobacco, and gambling, yet continued advising clients in ways that amplified risks.  In the case of Purdue, McKinsey agreed to pay $650 million in December 2024 to resolve criminal and civil investigations into its work advising the pharmaceutical giant, including a 2013 plan to “turbocharge” marketing efforts to boost OxyContin sales. 

As the event drew to a close, the panel returned to the question of long-term change. The publication of When McKinsey Comes to Town sparked unprecedented scrutiny of the consulting industry, and many more people now understand the reach of firms like McKinsey, Bain, and Boston Consulting Group (BCG). Yet new controversies continue to emerge, including BCG’s reported involvement in advising on the displacement of Palestinians in Gaza.

Bogdanich offered a stark assessment, saying he sees little evidence of fundamental change. Forsythe expressed cautious optimism rooted in the actions of younger consultants who refused to look away, challenged internal decisions, and often became key sources for the book. Their willingness to speak up suggests that cultural change arises when people who work for powerful institutions come in with a clearer understanding of both their influence and their potential blind spots.

“There are so many good things about McKinsey and so many instances where they've actually advised clients, and it's gone to their great benefit,” Forsythe said. “Our message is, you've got to go into a firm like this with your eyes wide open.”