presentation mckinsey

Database of 34+ Downloadable McKinsey Presentations

Table of contents.

It’s great to learn the techniques that strategy consulting firms like McKinsey & Co use to build compelling slide decks (e.g. executive summaries , the Pyramid Principle ,  action titles , etc.)

But sometimes you just want to see McKinsey presentations to see how those techniques are applied in the real world.

The problem is that it’s quite hard to find good-quality McKinsey presentations. Most of them are commercial in confidence and, even if they’re not, they’re scattered all over the web.

You can download the full set of McKinsey presentations (plus an additional 100+ presentations from BCG, Bain & Co, Kearney, Oliver Wyman, L.E.K, and more) using this form:

Download 120+ strategy consulting presentations for free

Looking for slide inspiration? Download 120+ consulting slide decks from top strategy consulting firms, such as McKinsey, BCG and Bain!

Or if you’d rather download the McKinsey presentations individually, you’ll find a list for you to download below:

Downloadable McKinsey Presentations & Slide Decks

• McKinsey – USPS Future Business Model (2010)
• McKinsey – Addressing the Global Affordable Housing Challenge (2016)
• McKinsey – The Internet of Things and Big Data (2013)
• McKinsey – Challenges in Mining: Scarcity or Opportunity? (2015)
• McKinsey – Digital Luxury Experience (2017)
• McKinsey – European Banking Summit (2018)
• McKinsey – Context for Global Growth and Development (2014)
• McKinsey – Outperformers: High Growth Emerging Economies (2018)
• McKinsey – Insurance Trends and Growth Opportunities for Poland (2015)
• McKinsey – Jobs Lost, Jobs Gained: Workforce Transitions (2017)
• McKinsey – Current Perspectives on Medical Affairs in Japan (2018)
• McKinsey – Digitally-Enabled Processes in the NHS (2014)
• McKinsey – From Poverty to Empowerment (2014)
• McKinsey – What Makes Private Sector Partnerships Work (2011)
• McKinsey – Reinventing Construction (2017)
• McKinsey – Laying the Foundations for a Financially Sound Industry (2013)
• McKinsey – Technology’s Role in Mineral Criticality (2017)
• McKinsey – Capturing the Full Electrical Efficiency Potential of the UK (2012)
• McKinsey – How Companies can Capture the Veteran Opportunity (2012)
• McKinsey – Investment and Industrial Policy (2018)
• McKinsey – Moving Laggards to Early Adopters (2019)
• McKinsey – Helping Global Health Partnerships to increase their impact (2009)
• McKinsey – The changed agenda in the global sourcing industry (2009)
• McKinsey – Attracting Responsible Mining Investment in Fragile and Conflict Affected Settings (2014)
• McKinsey – Using Artificial Intelligence to prevent healthcare errors from occurring (2017)
• McKinsey – Refueling the innovation engine in vaccines (2016)

If you’d like to download more consulting decks from BCG, Bain, L.E.K Consulting, Oliver Wyman, Kearney and more, then check out our free database of 71+ downloadable consulting presentations .

How to structure your slides like McKinsey: A step-by-step guide with screenshots and Examples

Structuring and building your slides effectively can be the difference between landing major projects and struggling to find clients. Luckily, there are eight simple steps you can take to swiftly transform your slides - without doing a lot of extra work.

Why It's Important: Making Your Slides Shine

Slides play a pivotal role in million-dollar projects. They serve multiple purposes, including:

• Breaking down complex ideas into easily understandable portions
• Providing strategic insights that guide companies over the years
• Uncovering research and insights from multiple data sources

IIn simpler terms, your communication needs to be crystal clear. By following the principles below, you'll be on solid ground.

Section 1: Embrace the Pyramid Principle

The Pyramid Principle, introduced by Barbara Minto's bestselling book, is a cornerstone of the consulting world. First published in 1985 and updated several times, its central message remains just as relevant today:

• Lead with Your Headline/Key Message
• Organize and Theme Your Arguments
• Include Supporting Points

Why it matters

This framework is time-tested across generations. In addition, using this framework is a subtle way to let others know “I am in the know”.

How to do it

Usually when creating a slide, we work backwards through this structure. 

• We start by conducting the analysis that forms the basis for our supporting points.
• As these supporting points take shape, we can group them into categories or themes.
• Once we have a clear picture of all the supporting points, we can use our headline to craft a compelling narrative around the slide's content.

Worth noting: It's worth mentioning that sometimes we might enter the slide creation process with a fairly solid conclusion in mind. Other times, we may need to do more groundwork before even beginning the slide.

1a: Use your headline for a key message, not as a label

The marketing guru David Ogilvy said: “When you have written your headline, you have spent 80 cents of your dollar” .

The headline is the most precious real estate of any slide. It is the first thing an executive sees and it should be used for storytelling. In fact, a busy executive should be able to read only the headlines in a presentation and still grasp the key conclusions.

Many, especially younger analysts, use labels in their headlines. But here's a better approach: let your headlines encapsulate clear conclusions and actionable steps. This sets the stage for your audience and makes your slide a breeze to read. Here are a few examples:

• Key facts about Australia -> Australia is a highly developed country in the South-Eastern hemisphere with 27 million inhabitants
• Key findings from our analysis -> Company X can minimize supply chain issues by nearshoring widget production

Remember, it all boils down to the "bottom line upfront."

1b: Group and label items to create a natural flow

If you throw 9 supporting points on a slide without any clear categorization you are already overwhelming and losing the reader.

Throw the same 9 supporting points on a slide in groups of 3 and the flow is suddenly highly structured and the reader knows where to go next.

This isn't just about helping your reader; it's also a fantastic tool for you as the slide creator to emphasize what matters most. When you categorize or give themes, remember to:

• First, pick the most vital theme, then the second most crucial, and so forth.
• Second, arrange the sub-points by importance.

The bottom line : This categorization method makes slides much easier to digest and understand quickly.

1c: Create your supporting points and data

Your headlines and categories must be backed by solid evidence. This is where you showcase the data from your in-depth analysis, which, again, can be supported by appendix slides.

When you present facts on your slide, remember, it's another opportunity to weave a compelling story while emphasizing the most crucial points. As an example, take a look at this from Roland Berger. Pay attention to how all their supporting points contribute to the narrative introduced in the headline.

This is an executive summary slide, and I would expect the following slides to provide data for each of the points made.

Here is a more classical example from McKinsey. Notice how they provide context with callouts to augment the supporting data, all while the headline conveys the entire story.

1d: One message per slide

In consulting decks without any punch, we often see multiple topics crammed into one slide. 

When too many topics squeeze onto one slide, crafting a compelling headline becomes challenging. Moreover, it blurs your main message - what's truly important here?

The solution is simple: Stick to One Message per Slide.

Before you even start your slides, know what you are going to say. Don’t write your headline yet, but think about topics as you design your slide outline. Page 1 focuses on topic A, page 2 on topic B, and so on. 

For instance, let's look at this slide from a McKinsey presentation as an example:

In this slide, the spotlight is on the expected global payments growth. The left side provides a macro-level view globally, while the right side drills into the regional breakdown of this growth.

Section 2: How to make your slide stand out visually

Now that we've tackled section 1 and mastered slide structure, let's dive into section 2, where we'll explore crucial steps to ensure your slide shines visually.

2a: Box things up

Many PowerPoint slides consist of a headline, a graph, and some boring bullet points. To make your slide stand out with the exact same content, there’s a simple solution: Box It Up . This not only makes it more interesting for the reader but also gives a more professional appearance.

Same content, and a brand-new slide.

2b: Use images and icons

They say a picture paints a thousand words, but icons, well, they're at least a hundred words each. With images and icons, you can convey more using less.

Caution: Avoid going overboard with images and icons; use them strategically to provide additional information when it's relevant.

Let’s see some examples of good icon use

Looking at the earlier slide from Roland Berger, they augment the categorization with icons. 

In the image above, the icons are used cleverly. The icon on the left highlights one of the driving forces, namely the technological advances. The icon on the right highlights the other driving force, which is the change in consumer preferences.

Another good example is from this BCG slide. While the design is dated, the icons serve as a quick guide to understanding each of the driving forces.

2c: Remove chart junk

As a rule of thumb, if a chart element serves no purpose, delete it. We refer to this as chart junk. 

In the example below, we've eliminated the left axis and the gridlines because they're not needed. The data labels on the individual bars provide all the necessary information.

2d: Order your chart data (logically)

Take a glance at the chart above. Can it be improved? Absolutely.

In the initial chart, the data is presented in a seemingly random order. New York is followed by California, followed by Florida, and so on. In this case, it makes sense to arrange the data by size.

As shown above, we've reordered the data by size, making the chart much easier to comprehend. Typically, we sort data using one of the following parameters:

• Time : When illustrating a trend over time, we sort it by month, year, or a similar timeframe.
• Logical/Pre-determined : In scenarios like creating a waterfall chart, there's usually a natural order for presenting individual items. For example, to move from Revenue to Net Income, you start with Revenue, then factor in Variable Costs, followed by SG&A, and so on.
• Size : When there's no clear sorting logic, we often opt for size-based ordering.

If you use one of these 3 orderings, you are on safe footing.

Now there’s only one thing left!

Start implementing the tips above in your slides. 

If you enjoyed this article or have any questions or comments, please let us know at [email protected] .

And if you want more tips like this, be sure to subscribe to our newsletter.

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3 Great Examples of Slide Structure from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG

By Paul Moss

Consulting firms all around the world consistently rely on the pyramid principle to build high-quality presentations with proper slide structure..

Consulting firms like McKinsey, Bain, and BCG rely on proper slide structure to communicate insights to their clients. In this post, I’ll show you exactly how they use the Pyramid Principle to structure their slides, and why it makes such a big difference in the clarity of their presentations.  

If you’re new to this blog, make sure you check out our other  consulting slide breakdowns . And when you’re ready, take a look at our advanced PowerPoint and presentation building  courses  where you can learn to create presentations like a top-tier consultant. 

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Table of Contents

What is the Pyramid Principle?

Put simply, the Pyramid Principle is just a structured way of communicating your ideas where you  start with your main point and then work your way through the supporting details of that main point.  It is represented pretty well with a pyramid because you start right at the top of the Pyramid and then move down to the bottom with more supporting details and data.

Let’s say I am trying to communicate the idea that LeBron James is my favorite player. I would first start with the main point, and then provide my three key arguments for why he is my favorite player. Then below that, I could provide supporting details for each key argument. 

In this visualization,  each idea is meant to summarize all the ideas below it.  For example, the idea that Lebron James scores a lot of points summarizes the two supporting details about his career average of 27 points per game, and him being the 3rd highest all-time scorer. 

This style of top-down communication works really well in a variety of settings, including email, face-to-face communication, and of course, PowerPoint presentations — which is what I’m going to focus on here. 

BCG Example

The first example on our list is BCG . The slide is an excellent example of the Pyramid Principle because it is well-structured and clear. The slide title says “Melbourne seen as a cultural and creative city”, which is the main point the slide creator is trying to communicate (which is why it sits at the top of the slide in bold green letters).

Then they’ve split the main point into two key arguments: “Melbourne perceived by Australians as the country’s leading cultural city” and, “International travelers also perceive Melbourne as a creative city”. Then below each subtitle, there are four supporting points that are meant to provide support. 

“Melbourne as a Global Cultural Destination” BCG

In this example the Pyramid Principle is quite easy to see. The title of the slide is the main point, the subtitles of the slide represent the key arguments, and the bullet points below that make up the supporting details and data. Each aspect of the slide fits into one of these three layers, and  everything on the slide has a purpose.

By structuring the information in this way,  BCG makes it easy for the audience to process the contents of the slide quickly and easily.  There’s no question about what they’re trying to say, or why they’re trying to say it.

With data-heavy slides like this, it can be easy for the audience to get lost — especially if they’re trying to listen to a live speaker, read the words on the slide, and think critically about the slide’s message. Even for a smart person, this can be cognitive overload.  Organizing the slide into digestible bites significantly reduces the mental load on the audience. 

McKinsey Example 

The next slide from McKinsey is also reasonably straightforward. It’s from a deck about high-growth emerging economies, which they refer to as “outperforming economies”.

The title of the slide says “A pro growth agenda of productivity, income, and demand propelled the outperforming economies”, and the slide itself shows the three areas that have propelled the growth for these emerging economies: productivity, growth, and demand. 

“Outperformers: High-growth emerging economies and the companies that propel them” McKinsey, October 2018

There’s a few data points on the slide and a nice visual in the middle to break down the three main categories, making it pretty easy to spot the different layers in the Pyramid. So obviously, just like in our last slide, the main point will be represented by the title. That is what they want us to understand and take away from the slide first.

Then next the key argument level is also pretty clear with “higher productivity”, “boosting demand”, and “strong and inclusive growth” shown in bold text within each bracket (and also mentioned in the title). Then lastly, the bottom layer of the pyramid is represented by the various bullet points within each bracket (below the key arguments).

Altogether, it makes for  a well structured slide with a clear message and clear supporting points.  Despite not be organized visually in the same way as the BCG slide, the slide is very well structured and easy to understand. 

Bain Example

Then lastly, we have a slide from Bain , and this one is slightly more complicated than the first two. The title says “Greater than 60% of growth in 2011 continues to come from new customers. However, share from existing customers improved.” The slide is all about the luxury goods market in China, and more specifically, they’re trying to show where the growth in the market is coming from.

 “China Luxury Market Study” Bain & Company, December 2011

The BCG slide was organized neatly into the left and right sections of the slide, and in the McKinsey slide they were bolded with bullet points underneath. What’s tricky about this slide however, is that  the Pyramid Principle is not clearly visible at first glance. 

The title of the slide still represents the main point, and the key arguments are not emphasized visually, but logically they’re still present. The first key argument is that growth is coming from new customers, and the second key argument is that growth is coming from existing customers. Then if you look through the body of the slide,  you’ll notice that everything falls into one of these two categories. 

In the waterfall chart for example, notice how it is split into these two categories: new customers (as represented by the red columns), and then existing customers (as represented by the dark grey columns). Then on the right hand side of the slide, each of the bullet points can fit into one of the two categories. 

For example, the first bullet says “China market is still supply driven; new store openings create new demand.” This clearly fits into the key argument about growth coming (in part) from new customers. Combined with the key argument about growth coming from existing customers,  these two provide solid logical support for the main point. 

So despite not having an easy visual layout like the previous two examples, this slide is well organized logically, and provides a nice structure that helps the audience clearly understand the main message, as well as the support for that main message. 

You can watch a video version of this article on YouTube .

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What do McKinsey presentations look like?

by Consultant's Mind | 16 comments

What do McKinsey presentations looks like? 

Please find links to 30+ McKinsey presentations which are publicly available online.  Many of these are from conferences, or governmental / non-profit organizations clients who have chosen to make them available online. Yes, Google is useful.

I selected the ones which as less than 10 years old have more than 15 pages. Have more to say at the bottom of the post, but take a look at a few:

Challenges in Mining: Scarcity or Opportunity? (2015, 2.9Mb, 41pg) Addressing the global affordable housing challenge (2016, 3.9Mb, 29pg) How can companies capture veteran opportunities   (2012, 2.4Mb, 46pg)   The Internet of Things and Big Data: Opportunities for Value Creation   (2013, 600K, 17 pages) Context for Global Growth and Development   (2014, 900K, 11pg) Assessing the Impact of the Financial and Economic Crisis and Ideas to Enhance Americans’ Retirement Security (2009, 1.2Mb, 22pg) From poverty to empowerment MGI INDIA   (2014, 900K, 21pg) Big Data and Advanced Analytics (BDAA) for the Finance function (2014, 1.3Mb, 18pg) China Energy Demand Perspective (2014, 2.3Mb, 18pg) Insurance trends and growth opportunities for Poland (2015, 1.8Mb, 25pg) What makes private public partnerships work (2011, 1.1Mb, 12pg) Business plan preparation: Manual for Entrepreneurs   (2014, 900K, 76pg) USPS Future Business Model   (2010, 300K, 39pg) Healthcare.gov Red Team   (3.8Mb, 15 pg)   Laying the foundation for a sound industry – OECD   (2013, 400K, 17pg) Can the Financial Sector Promote Growth and Stability ?  (2015, 300K, 17pg) Enhancing the contribution of MSMEs to economic development: main barriers and possible interventions   (2011, 800K, 50pg)

A couple of thoughts:

• In true McKinsey style, there is a lot of analysis and data
• Titles are written in sentence-form with a “takeaway”
• Standardized color, font, layout, and kicker-boxes
• Frameworks to simplify the complex: timelines, value chain, bubble charts, histograms, maturity models, waterfall charts, and ROE analysis
• Diverse topics ranging from Big data in Mining to Polish insurance
• Use of experts, quotations, and inferences for more qualitative data
• Use of large surveys (n=20K+) to create voice of customer data

What is your major takeaway from viewing these presentations?

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16 Comments

You have provided a tremendous service here. Thank you! Looking at these decks made me wonder what the delivery of these presentations was like. The slides seem designed to stand alone and survive delivery by an unskilled speaker. This is the opposite of the Guy Kawasaki approach ( https://guykawasaki.com/the_102030_rule/ ), where it might be difficult to reconstruct the presentation from the slides alone.

My preference is to do the heavy intellectual lifting in a narrative report and then put together a presentation that serves as a verbal executive summary. When preparing the presentation, the logic comes first, and then the slides serve the logic.

Thanks for comment. I have done both – but prefer slides that stand alone. Slides always get passed around.

I completely agree with you.

Thanks for reading.

Great work. Thanks for putting this invaluable piece together.

Surely – thanks for reading and sharing.

These slides look really, really ugly. Honestly, I’d expect better from an MBB consultant in 2017.

For many of them, I would agree. Many of these are for conferences and the like – but yes, not very “put together”.

Nice share, I found this piece much informative and of value. Thank you for sharing

Great slides, very helpful. Thank for sharing.

This is very helpful. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for reading. If you find other ones online, let me know, will link.

Great slides and thank you for sharing indeed.

Very nice job. Thank you for sharing

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McKinsey Pyramid Principle: The Ultimate Guide to Effective Arguments

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is pivotal in structuring arguments, making data understandable, and driving informed decisions in fast-paced business environments. Using a top-down approach this methodology ensures concise, logical, and impactful presentations.

StrategyPunk

Introduction

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a communication framework developed by a former McKinsey consultant, Barbara Minto. The principle suggests that ideas should be presented structured and logically, with the most critical points at the top of the pyramid and supporting arguments and data below. By following this approach, presenters can ensure their ideas are clear, concise, and easy to understand.

The Pyramid Principle is widely used in consulting, business, and government organizations to structure and communicate complex ideas. The approach has been praised for its effectiveness in helping presenters to focus on the key messages they want to convey. By starting with the most important idea and then building a logical structure around it, presenters can ensure that their audience understands the main point and can follow the supporting arguments and data.

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a communication tool widely used by consulting firms to present insights, analysis, and data points in a logical order that maximizes impact. It is a method of organizing information into a clear and concise structure that supports a presentation's title and main points. The Pyramid Principle is based on the idea that ideas should be presented in a hierarchy, with the most crucial information at the top, supported by supporting thoughts that follow a MECE (mutually exclusive, collectively exhaustive) principle.

The benefits of using the McKinsey Pyramid Principle are numerous. It allows for clear and concise communication of complex information, making it easier for the audience to understand and retain the information presented. It also helps to think critically about the presented information, ensuring that all data and facts are relevant to the argument. Additionally, it helps to create a persuasive argument supported by the data and facts presented.

Methodology

To use the McKinsey Pyramid Principle, one must start with a high-level executive summary that outlines the presentation's main points. From there, the supporting thoughts are organized into a hierarchy that supports the main points. Each supporting idea should be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive, meaning that it should not overlap with any other supporting thought and should cover all aspects of the argument being made. The supporting ideas should be presented in a logical order that follows the MECE principle.

The Pyramid Principle is often used in PowerPoint presentations, with each slide representing a hierarchy level. The title of each slide should clearly state the main point being made, and the supporting thoughts should be presented in bullet points or tables that show the data and facts being used to support the argument.

In the consulting world, the McKinsey Pyramid Principle is often used in case interviews to organize information and present a persuasive argument. It is a valuable tool for any professional who needs to communicate complex information clearly and concisely.

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a valuable methodology for organizing information and presenting a persuasive argument. By following a logical hierarchy and using supporting thoughts that follow the MECE principle, one can create a presentation that is clear, concise, and supported by data and facts.

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a communication tool that helps individuals structure their thoughts and ideas clearly and concisely. It is based on the principle that ideas should be presented logically, starting with the main point and then supporting it with evidence and data. The Pyramid Principle is often used in consulting but can be applied to any situation where clear and effective communication is essential.

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is important because it helps individuals present information in a way that is easy to understand. Busy executives and decision-makers often need more time to grasp the main point of a presentation or report quickly. Individuals can use the Pyramid Principle to ensure that their main point is clear and that supporting arguments and data are presented logically and efficiently.

Application

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle can be applied in various situations, including presentations, reports, case interviews, etc. It can structure a single thought or organize a complex information set. By following the Pyramid Principle, individuals can ensure that their ideas are presented in a way that is easy to understand and motivates action.

When applying the Pyramid Principle, it is essential to start with a clear and concise main point, and this should be followed by supporting arguments and data presented logically. The Pyramid Principle can also identify and resolve problems by breaking complicated situations into smaller, more manageable parts.

Overall, the McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a valuable tool for anyone who needs to communicate effectively. Individuals can use the Pyramid Principle to ensure their ideas are presented clearly and logically and capture the reader's or audience's attention.

Supporting Arguments

Supporting arguments are the reasons and evidence for a central point or idea. They help to provide clarity and concise reasoning to a persuasive argument. Supporting arguments are essential in building a strong and logical structure for any case interview.

Several types of supporting arguments can be used to strengthen a case. These include:

• Data and facts: Statistical and factual information can support a central point or idea.
• Supporting data: Supporting data is additional information, such as research findings or case studies, that can help a central point or idea.
• Supporting reasons: Supporting reasons are the logical reasons that explain why a central point or idea is valid.
• Costs and metrics: Costs and metrics demonstrate the impact of a central point or idea.

Please look at the following example to show the importance of supporting arguments. A company is considering implementing a new software system to improve efficiency. The main point is that the new software system will save the company money in the long run. The supporting arguments could include the following:

• Data and facts: Statistical data showing the cost savings of similar software implementations in other companies.
• Supporting data: Research findings that demonstrate the positive impact of the software on efficiency and productivity.
• Supporting reasons: Logical reasons why the software will save money, such as reducing the need for manual labor.
• Costs and metrics: A breakdown of the costs associated with the software implementation and how long-term savings will offset them.

The company can build a persuasive argument for implementing the new software system using these supporting arguments.

Supporting Data and Facts

Supporting data and facts are crucial for building a strong and persuasive argument in the McKinsey Pyramid Principle. Statistical and factual information can help the main point or idea and provide clarity and validity to the discussion. Supporting data, such as research findings or case studies, can also demonstrate the positive impact of the central point or idea.

Examples of supporting data and facts include:

• Market research data that supports the need for a new product or service
• Case studies of successful implementations of a proposed solution
• Customer feedback that helps the main point or idea
• Financial data that demonstrates the impact of a proposed change on the organization's bottom line

Using supporting data and facts can also help anticipate and address potential objections or concerns the audience may have. For example, if the central point or idea involves implementing new technology, providing data on its success rate in similar organizations can help alleviate concerns about its effectiveness.

When using supporting data and facts, it is vital to ensure the information is accurate and relevant to the argument. It should also be presented clearly and concisely through graphs or charts to help the audience understand its significance.

In conclusion, the McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a powerful tool that helps consultants and business professionals communicate their ideas effectively. Using a top-down approach and structuring their arguments logically and MECE, they can motivate action and drive change in their organizations.

The supporting arguments for the Pyramid Principle are based on the idea that busy executives have limited time and attention spans. Therefore, presenting information concisely and highlighting the most critical points is essential. This approach helps avoid confusion and ensures the audience understands the message.

The supporting data and facts for the Pyramid Principle show that it is an effective communication tool used by McKinsey consultants for decades. It has also been adopted by other consulting firms such as BCG and Bain, which demonstrates its widespread applicability and usefulness.

Recommendations for using the Pyramid Principle include training and practice to develop the necessary skills to apply it effectively. Additionally, it is essential to understand the core principles of the Pyramid Principle, such as the MECE principle and the flow of ideas.

The McKinsey Pyramid Principle has complications and requires careful thought and planning to implement successfully. However, the supporting reasons for using it far outweigh the problems, and it is a valuable tool for any consultant or business professional.

In summary, the McKinsey Pyramid Principle is essential for communicating ideas clearly and concisely. It is based on a top-down approach that first highlights the most critical points and is supported by data and facts. Using the Pyramid Principle, consultants and business professionals can motivate action and drive change in their organizations.

Executive Summary

If you don't want to read the comprehensive guide, executive summary: harnessing the mckinsey pyramid principle for clear and effective communication.

• The McKinsey Pyramid Principle is a communication tool that structures complex ideas into clear, concise, and logical arguments.
• The method entails presenting the most crucial points first, followed by supporting ideas arranged hierarchically.
• A key feature is using the MECE (Mutually Exclusive, Collectively Exhaustive) principle to ensure comprehensiveness and avoid overlap in supporting arguments.
• The Pyramid Principle allows for effective communication of complex data, making it easy for audiences to understand, follow, and remember the main points.
• This method is widely used in consulting and business presentations, reports, and case interviews.
• Supporting arguments can be data, facts, reasons, costs, or metrics, which add weight to the main point and provide clarity.
• Despite requiring careful thought and planning, the Pyramid Principle is a highly beneficial tool that can drive organizational understanding and action.

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Creating impactful presentations: tips from mckinsey experts.

In the world of business, presentations can make or break your success. Whether you’re pitching a new idea, presenting a project update, or seeking stakeholder approval, your ability to create and deliver a powerful presentation can be the deciding factor. McKinsey, one of the world’s leading management consulting firms, is renowned for its expertise in crafting high-impact presentations. In this article, we’ll delve into the secrets behind McKinsey’s success and reveal how you can apply their strategies, including McKinsey slide templates, to elevate your presentations and captivate your audience.

The Importance of a Compelling Presentation

Presentations are an essential communication tool in the business world, serving to inform, persuade, and inspire your audience. An impactful presentation can:

Engage your audience, capturing their attention and maintaining their interest throughout.

Clearly and concisely convey complex ideas and data.

Persuade stakeholders to support your proposal or project.

Foster collaboration and generate momentum for new initiatives.

By mastering the art of presentation, you can enhance your professional reputation and improve your overall effectiveness as a business professional.

The McKinsey Approach to Presentation Design

McKinsey is renowned for its ability to create visually appealing and persuasive presentations. At the core of their approach are several key principles:

Prioritize clarity and simplicity: Focus on conveying your main points in a clear and concise manner, avoiding unnecessary details and jargon.

Leverage a consistent visual style: Establish a uniform visual language, using consistent colors, fonts, and design elements throughout your presentation.

Use visuals to support your message: Incorporate charts, graphs, and images to illustrate your points and enhance your presentation’s visual appeal.

By following these principles, you can create presentations that are both visually engaging and highly effective at communicating your message.

McKinsey Slide Templates: A Secret Weapon for Impactful Presentations

One of the keys to McKinsey’s success in presentation design is its use of slide templates. Mckinsey slide templates provide a standardized format for presenting information, ensuring that your presentation remains consistent and polished. By leveraging McKinsey slide templates, you can:

Save time and effort: With a pre-designed format, you can focus on crafting a compelling narrative rather than grappling with design elements.

Maintain consistency: A standardized template ensures that your presentation remains visually cohesive, enhancing its overall professionalism and impact.

Adapt to your needs: Many McKinsey slide templates are customizable, allowing you to tailor them to your specific requirements and preferences.

Subheading 4: Tips for Effective Storytelling in Presentations

A powerful presentation is built on a foundation of compelling storytelling. To create a persuasive narrative, consider these tips from McKinsey experts:

Start with a strong opening: Capture your audience’s attention from the outset with a bold statement, a provocative question, or an intriguing fact.

Establish a clear structure: Organize your presentation into a logical sequence, with a clear beginning, middle, and end.

Focus on the “so what”: Emphasize the relevance and implications of your message, making it clear why your audience should care.

Use anecdotes and examples: Illustrate your points with real-life stories and case studies to make them more relatable and memorable.

By incorporating these storytelling techniques, you can create a presentation that resonates with your audience and leaves a lasting impression.

Mastering Data Visualization

Presenting data effectively is a crucial skill for business professionals. To create impactful data visualizations, follow these tips from McKinsey experts:

Choose the right chart type: Select a chart format that best communicates your message, considering options such as bar charts, line charts, pie charts, or scatter plots.

Simplify your visuals: Focus on the most important data points, eliminating extraneous information that may detract from your message.

Use color strategically: Employ color to highlight key points, trends, or comparisons, guiding your audience’s attention to what matters most.

Provide context: Offer context for your data, including timeframes, units, and benchmarks, to help your audience fully understand the significance of your findings.

By mastering data visualization techniques, you can present complex information in a clear and engaging manner, enhancing the overall impact of your presentation.

Delivering Your Presentation with Confidence

The delivery of your presentation is just as important as its content and design. To ensure a confident and engaging delivery, consider these tips from McKinsey experts:

Practice, practice, practice: Rehearse your presentation multiple times, refining your delivery and familiarizing yourself with the content.

Know your audience: Tailor your delivery to the needs and interests of your audience, emphasizing the aspects of your presentation that are most relevant to them.

Maintain eye contact: Engage with your audience by looking at them directly, demonstrating confidence and sincerity.

Use body language effectively: Employ gestures, posture, and facial expressions to reinforce your message and convey enthusiasm.

By focusing on your delivery, you can further enhance the impact of your presentation and create a lasting impression on your audience.

Continuous Improvement: Learning from the Best

To continually hone your presentation skills, seek out high-quality resources and examples from industry leaders like McKinsey. By studying their strategies and techniques, you can gain valuable insights and inspiration to elevate your own presentations. Some resources to consider include:

McKinsey Quarterly: An online publication featuring in-depth articles and presentations on a wide range of business topics.

TED Talks: A collection of inspiring and informative talks from experts across various fields, offering valuable lessons in presentation design and delivery.

SlideShare: A platform for sharing professional presentations, including many examples from McKinsey and other leading firms.

By leveraging these resources, you can stay informed about best practices in presentation design and continually refine your skills.

Conclusion:

Creating impactful presentations is a critical skill for business professionals seeking to persuade, inform, and inspire their audience. By applying the strategies and techniques used by McKinsey experts, including leveraging McKinsey slide templates, focusing on effective storytelling, mastering data visualization, and delivering your presentation with confidence, you can elevate your presentations to new heights. Remember, a powerful presentation can be the key to unlocking opportunities, securing stakeholder support, and driving business success. So, invest in developing your presentation skills and watch your impact soar. 

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McKinsey-style business presentations

Grow a business.

• Flat Design
• Minimalist Design
• Colorful, Bright, and Bold Design
• Infographic-Style Slides in Presentations
• Bold Typography Design

Presentation skills are essential to success in any business. This article explains how to structure a McKinsey-style business presentation, step by step, from a single slide to a complete deck. We discuss how to prepare… ... read more Presentation skills are essential to success in any business. This article explains how to structure a McKinsey-style business presentation, step by step, from a single slide to a complete deck. We discuss how to prepare for a presentation, how to structure the material, and how to deliver the presentation. close

What can we learn about presentations from the most successful management consulting companies like McKinsey, BCG, or Bain?

Prezlab has had the privilege of working with some of the best management consulting firms in the region and has helped a slew of consultants and consulting companies with their presentations. We thought it would be a great idea to jot down what the most successful management consulting companies such as McKinsey, BCG, and Bain do in their presentations to make them such a success. Their presentations are elegant, articulate, well-organized, engaging, and pack a mighty punch.

Great consultants are problem-solvers. In our opinion, this is a must for consultants. When this ability is coupled with the ability to design a great presentation, that’s when the magic happens. Because with the power of effective communication and delivery, they can change minds and convince their audience that their solutions are the most effective. Unfortunately, a lot of management consultants lack this ability. This blog is meant to bring you a little closer to becoming an effective communicator of solutions via presentation design .

Think of a great presentation like a movie; storytelling is the most central aspect. The idea of your presentation as a management consultant is to present and unpack complex ideas in the most simplified and easy-to-understand manner. Apart from storytelling, the other aspects of your presentation would be data and analysis. All of these elements should work in unison and be coherent with each other to make one singular point, the solution. If you want to learn more about this aspect of a presentation then read our blog: Effective remedies to dull and boring presentations .

Before you start, ask yourself the following questions:

01 Who is my target audience and what is their level of understanding of the problems?

02 How long should your presentation be?

03 How much time would your audience like to spend on your presentation?

04 What do they care about?

05 What action would you like them to take after your presentation?

The typical elements of a management consulting presentation

1 – executive summary.

The executive summary is a situational summary of the problem at hand and the gist of your presentation. This is mostly written for top management who don’t have the time to go through the entire presentation and just want a powerful summary.

2 – Table of Content

A table of content helps spark interest and give your audience an idea of what is to come. This is usually shown right at the beginning before you begin presenting your material.

3 – Action Title

The action title is your single point or key idea that you will be proposing in the rest of the presentation. Every point you introduce should connect back to the action title.

4 – Chapters and Body of Slides

The chapters and body of slides are the slides that conform to the narrative. You can split the presentation into chapters to break it into more palatable sections. Use the slides to present your story backed by the data and analysis.

5 – Conclusion and recommendations

The conclusion reinforces and reiterates your final point or your solution. This section summarizes all your main ideas and condenses them into a central theme.

One aspect that makes sides from McKinsey and other top management consulting firms stand out is the use of engaging visuals that go side by side with the data being presented in the slides.

Another aspect of McKinsey slides is the constant and conscious attempt to keep the number of slides to as few as possible. This default instinct is to present as much data as possible. The false impression that most management consultants have is that if they say more, they have a better chance of winning their audience over.

Nothing can be further away from the truth. Once you start thinking this way you would be surprised how you can chop down 20 slides to 2 slides without losing any real impact. Presentation formats such as the PechaKucha or Guy Kawasaki methods limit their slides to a certain number and work within that specific parameter to tell a story.

McKinsey consultancy slides also do not use a lot of bullet points – it is a surefire way of losing your audience’s interest. Studies have shown that people are more likely to remember information presented as images and pictures rather than bullet points. Steve Jobs, one of the greatest presenters of all time, never used bullets in any of his presentations, and we wrote a blog on  5 Presentation Lessons You Can Learn from Steve Jobs  if you are interested in learning more .

Key features from McKinsey slides worth keeping in mind:

01 Choose a professional font like Arial or any other professional font

02 Keep colors to a minimum and keep the color scheme consistent across all the slides

03 Highlight the key points

04 Avoid clutter, give your slides enough breathing space

05 Ensure proper and correct alignment

06 Have a “source” section at the bottom of each slide

07 No fancy graphics or animations

And most importantly: make sure each side has an action title that encapsulates the key idea of that slide in a one-liner (maximum two sentences). The idea is that if someone reads just the action titles of each slide, they should get the gist of your presentation.

If you want to see some of McKinsey’s presentations in action then check out the links below:

Jobs lost, jobs gained: Workforce transitions in a time of automation

Reinventing Construction

Laying the foundations for a financially sound industry

If you would like to get your McKinsey-style slides designed by Prezlab, get in touch with us .

Let us design your presentation!

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I quit McKinsey after 1 ½ years. I was making over $200k but my mental health was shattered.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with a former McKinsey & Company associate who worked at the company for a year and a half. They spoke on condition of anonymity due to privacy concerns. Business Insider has verified their identity and employment at McKinsey. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

I joined McKinsey as an associate in 2021. Going in, I always knew, "I'm here for a bad time, not a long time."

I knew that the work would be challenging , but I also hoped that if I stuck it out, I'd be able to build up my analytical tool kit and pick up great problem-solving skills.

But looking back, I regret the way I approached my time at McKinsey.

There was little mentorship

One of the things I struggled with was the lack of mentorship. It's supposed to be a really apprenticeship-heavy culture , but that wasn't my experience.

You're expected to start working from day one. I was there to learn, but it was a frustrating experience because no one was there to teach me. I wanted somebody to sit down with me and teach me the basic skills required for the job, like how to prepare for a meeting, how to wordsmith a presentation deck, and how to fix my mistakes.

I was alone on an island while my manager drowned in her other work. I felt like I wasn't learning anything.

As a result, I heard senior-level employees commenting about how the new analysts and associates weren't good because they weren't receiving any mentorship.

I typically worked from 7:30 a.m. until 11:30 p.m.

As consultants, we didn't have to do any hardcore research because we had teams that did our research for us. We also had a team we could call on if we needed help with Excel, a team to make our PowerPoints pretty, and a team to set up calls with experts.

It's funny because people ask me, "You had all those researchers, so what did you do?"

My days mainly consisted of problem-solving meetings in which we'd show the partners or senior partners our decks and get their feedback, take notes, and then revise accordingly before the next meeting, which might be later that same day or the following day. Sometimes I'd have three of these meetings a day, all on different presentations.

I also spent time conducting research for new pages in a deck, in client meetings, and on calls with experts.

On a typical day, I worked from 7:30 a.m. or 8 a.m. until 11:30 p.m. And it was pedal to the metal — I didn't leave my desk, forgot to eat, and dropped tons of weight. I barely remembered to go to the bathroom. I only remembered to get up when I noticed my dog looking at me sadly.

And though we had a budget for fun work events, some people didn't like attending them because they'd still have a ton of work waiting for them when they got home.

I had many team dinners where some people would call their Uber secretly underneath the table so they could get home and keep working. It kind of took the fun away.

The bar at McKinsey was much higher than at my previous consulting firm

I feel like people love to hate consultants. They say that consultants just take companies' money and don't add value. But many consulting firms get projects based on results and outcomes, and McKinsey couldn't be McKinsey without results.

I've read comments on social media that assume there are a lot of overpaid idiots at McKinsey. But there really aren't — there's an attitude of "move up or out," so people there are really good.

I got the chance to solve a lot of difficult problems with some really smart people. The company really goes out of its way to give clients a bespoke experience, as opposed to Big Four work, which is more of a plug-and-chug into the same slide situation.

I had previously worked at another consulting firm, and my experience there compared to McKinsey was like night and day. The work at McKinsey was so much harder, and the bar was so much higher. Everything at McKinsey is just a lot more customized.

Some associate partners and partners were mean

The people at McKinsey were both the best and worst parts of my experience.

The analysts and associates were all cool, but a few associate partners and partners were mean . They freaked out over mistakes and belittled people's thought processes.

My McKinsey friends always said I got really unlucky in terms of the associate partners I had to work with closely.

Although it wasn't an everyday thing, they made some analysts and associates cry. One associate partner looked at a slide I made, began laughing hysterically, and said it was the worst slide they had ever seen. Another associate partner yelled at and made fun of people while talking about them behind their backs — and to their faces.

But my colleagues could be really supportive. One time, an associate partner screamed at me in front of our whole team because they wrongfully thought I was going to miss a deadline — but I knew I could meet it and didn't end up missing it.

I still ended up crying.

My team felt so bad for me that they rallied behind me and we all stopped working for the night. One of my coworkers went and got bottles of wine, and we all drank in the team room; it just felt like a lot of camaraderie.

I took a mental-health break because I couldn't do it anymore

After about a year of working at McKinsey, I took a three-month mental-health leave. It was literally driving me to the edge . I just couldn't do it anymore.

I was crying more and taking anxiety medication at a higher dosage than I had ever needed before joining. The week before I decided to leave, I was oscillating between being OK and then crying and then being very stoic.

I told my development group leader , a mentor assigned by McKinsey, that I was thinking about taking short-term mental-health disability leave. I wasn't even nervous about bringing this up because of how normal it seemed — I know other McKinsey employees who had also taken health breaks due to the mental toll.

Before McKinsey, I didn't even know mental-health disability benefits were a thing. Now I know more than a few people who have gotten them. The mental toll, plus the workload, was crazy.

I've heard multiple people, myself included, say, "I do not get paid enough for this shit," and I genuinely believe that. I don't think that the pay was enough for what we were doing, despite the fact that I was making over $200,000 a year when I left.

During my break, I tried to pick up new hobbies and realized that I hated every hobby. I tried to get out of the house more but wasn't really successful because of how down I was. Sometimes, I'd have to hire a dog walker even though I was home because I just felt like I couldn't handle it. At some point, I couldn't even care for myself, so my mom came to town to care for me and my dog.

I decided to leave the company because I realized I couldn't stay at a place that caused my mental health to deteriorate like this. Why would I want to be someplace that led me to such a dark place?

I regret not being more assertive when I was there

The problem with McKinsey wasn't the work — I'm used to working hard, working long hours, and being frustrated at work. I think it was really the people beating down on me and making me feel like I was never enough that really cracked me.

It's been over a year since I officially left, and I feel much better now. I'm hopping back into the job market and doing interviews. They always say that once you go to McKinsey, you can go anywhere, but the market is bad right now , and that hasn't been my experience. It's hard for me to quantify the value of having worked at McKinsey.

Overall, my time at McKinsey was a good learning experience — not so much in terms of hard analytical skills. I didn't pick up as many of those as I had wanted, but I did learn a lot about myself and working with different kinds of people.

I wish I had been a bit more assertive while I was there. You know the saying, "Play the game, or the game plays you?" I think the game played me, and if I had been a little more willing to stand up for what I needed, like being mentored and standing up to the mean associate partners, it would've been much better.

Maybe if I had stood up for myself more or received more guidance, I wouldn't have gotten yelled at as much. But I also think going on mental-health leave was inevitable given the kind of people I worked with. I don't think there was anything I could have really done.

As I look for a new job, I'm looking for companies that care about their employees , value inclusivity, and treat everyone with respect. I'm looking for companies that value mentorship, and I always ask in coffee chats, "What is the apprenticeship model at your company? What is the hierarchy model at your company? What is the upward feedback model at your company?" Those are things I will always ask now.

McKinsey & Company declined a request for comment from Business Insider.

If you worked at a top consulting firm and want to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected] .

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Google Cloud Next 2024: Everything announced so far

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Don’t have time to watch the full archive of Google’s keynote event ? That’s OK; we’ve summed up the most important parts of the event below, with additional details from the TechCrunch team on the ground at the event. And Tuesday’s updates weren’t the only things Google made available to non-attendees — Wednesday’s developer-focused stream started at 10:30 a.m. PT .

Google Vids

Leveraging AI to help customers develop creative content is something Big Tech is looking for, and Tuesday, Google introduced its version. Google Vids, a new AI-fueled video creation tool , is the latest feature added to the Google Workspace.

Here’s how it works: Google claims users can make videos alongside other Workspace tools like Docs and Sheets. The editing, writing and production is all there. You also can collaborate with colleagues in real time within Google Vids. Read more

Gemini Code Assist

After reading about Google’s new Gemini Code Assist , an enterprise-focused AI code completion and assistance tool, you may be asking yourself if that sounds familiar. And you would be correct. TechCrunch Senior Editor Frederic Lardinois writes that “Google previously offered a similar service under the now-defunct Duet AI branding.” Then Gemini came along. Code Assist is a direct competitor to GitHub’s Copilot Enterprise. Here’s why

And to put Gemini Code Assist into context, Alex Wilhelm breaks down its competition with Copilot, and its potential risks and benefits to developers, in the latest TechCrunch Minute episode.

Google Workspace

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Among the new features are voice prompts to kick off the AI-based “Help me write” feature in Gmail while on the go . Another one for Gmail includes a way to instantly turn rough email drafts into a more polished email. Over on Sheets, you can send out a customizable alert when a certain field changes. Meanwhile, a new set of templates make starting a new spreadsheet easier. For the Doc lovers, there is support for tabs now. This is good because, according to the company, you can “organize information in a single document instead of linking to multiple documents or searching through Drive.” Of course, subscribers get the goodies first. Read more

Google also seems to have plans to monetize two of its new AI features for the Google Workspace productivity suite. This will look like $10/month/user add-on packages. One will be for the new AI meetings and messaging add-on that takes notes for you, provides meeting summaries and translates content into 69 languages. The other is for the introduced AI security package, which helps admins keep Google Workspace content more secure. Read more

In February, Google announced an image generator built into Gemini, Google’s AI-powered chatbot. The company pulled it shortly after it was found to be randomly injecting gender and racial diversity into prompts about people. This resulted in some offensive inaccuracies. While we waited for an eventual re-release, Google came out with the enhanced image-generating tool, Imagen 2 . This is inside its Vertex AI developer platform and has more of a focus on enterprise. Imagen 2 is now generally available and comes with some fun new capabilities, including inpainting and outpainting. There’s also what Google’s calling “text-to-live images” where you  can now create short, four-second videos from text prompts, along the lines of AI-powered clip generation tools like Runway ,  Pika  and  Irreverent Labs . Read more

Vertex AI Agent Builder

We can all use a little bit of help, right? Meet Google’s Vertex AI Agent Builder, a new tool to help companies build AI agents.

“Vertex AI Agent Builder allows people to very easily and quickly build conversational agents,” Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian said. “You can build and deploy production-ready, generative AI-powered conversational agents and instruct and guide them the same way that you do humans to improve the quality and correctness of answers from models.”

To do this, the company uses a process called “grounding,” where the answers are tied to something considered to be a reliable source. In this case, it’s relying on Google Search (which in reality could or could not be accurate). Read more

Gemini comes to databases

Google calls Gemini in Databases a collection of features that “simplify all aspects of the database journey.” In less jargony language, it’s a bundle of AI-powered, developer-focused tools for Google Cloud customers who are creating, monitoring and migrating app databases. Read more

Google renews its focus on data sovereignty

Image Credits: MirageC / Getty Images

Google has offered cloud sovereignties before, but now it is focused more on partnerships rather than building them out on their own. Read more

Security tools get some AI love

Image Credits: Getty Images

Google jumps on board the productizing generative AI-powered security tool train with a number of new products and features aimed at large companies. Those include Threat Intelligence, which can analyze large portions of potentially malicious code. It also lets users perform natural language searches for ongoing threats or indicators of compromise. Another is Chronicle, Google’s cybersecurity telemetry offering for cloud customers to assist with cybersecurity investigations. The third is the enterprise cybersecurity and risk management suite Security Command Center. Read more

Nvidia’s Blackwell platform

One of the anticipated announcements is Nvidia’s next-generation Blackwell platform coming to Google Cloud in early 2025. Yes, that seems so far away. However, here is what to look forward to: support for the high-performance Nvidia HGX B200 for AI and HPC workloads and GB200 NBL72 for large language model (LLM) training. Oh, and we can reveal that the GB200 servers will be liquid-cooled. Read more

Chrome Enterprise Premium

Meanwhile, Google is expanding its Chrome Enterprise product suite with the launch of Chrome Enterprise Premium . What’s new here is that it mainly pertains mostly to security capabilities of the existing service, based on the insight that browsers are now the endpoints where most of the high-value work inside a company is done. Read more

Gemini 1.5 Pro

Everyone can use a “half” every now and again, and Google obliges with Gemini 1.5 Pro. This, Kyle Wiggers writes, is “Google’s most capable generative AI model,” and is now available in public preview on Vertex AI, Google’s enterprise-focused AI development platform. Here’s what you get for that half: T he amount of context that it can process, which is from 128,000 tokens up to 1 million tokens, where “tokens” refers to subdivided bits of raw data (like the syllables “fan,” “tas” and “tic” in the word “fantastic”). Read more

Open source tools

At Google Cloud Next 2024, the company debuted a number of open source tools primarily aimed at supporting generative AI projects and infrastructure. One is Max Diffusion, which is a collection of reference implementations of various diffusion models that run on XLA, or Accelerated Linear Algebra, devices. Then there is JetStream, a new engine to run generative AI models. The third is MaxTest, a collection of text-generating AI models targeting TPUs and Nvidia GPUs in the cloud. Read more

We don’t know a lot about this one, however, here is what we do know : Google Cloud joins AWS and Azure in announcing its first custom-built Arm processor, dubbed Axion. Frederic Lardinois writes that “based on Arm’s Neoverse 2 designs, Google says its Axion instances offer 30% better performance than other Arm-based instances from competitors like AWS and Microsoft and up to 50% better performance and 60% better energy efficiency than comparable X86-based instances.” Read more

The entire Google Cloud Next keynote

If all of that isn’t enough of an AI and cloud update deluge, you can watch the entire event keynote via the embed below.

Google Cloud Next’s developer keynote

On Wednesday, Google held a separate keynote for developers . They offered a deeper dive into the ins and outs of a number of tools outlined during the Tuesday keynote, including Gemini Cloud Assist, using AI for product recommendations and chat agents, ending with a showcase from Hugging Face. You can check out the full keynote below.

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McKinsey’s Diversity Fog

The consulting giant touts its studies purporting to show that race- and gender-conscious hiring leads to greater profits—but it likely has the causation backward.

Last year, McKinsey & Company released a study purporting to demonstrate that corporations with more diverse leadership—more women and racial minorities in executive positions—were also more profitable. The consulting behemoth’s findings were consistent with those of its previous three diversity studies, in 2015, 2018, and 2020, each of which had been cited across industries and government institutions as proof of the supposed financial benefits of race- and gender-conscious hiring policies. Now, a new paper raises questions about McKinsey’s methodology and suggests that its advertised findings may have gotten the causation backward: financial success may lead corporations to embrace diversity efforts, rather than the other way around.

Earlier this week, journalist Christopher Brunet flagged a paper in the March 2024 issue of Econ Journal Watch , a biannual publication edited by George Mason economist Daniel Klein that publishes article-length responses to other economists’ errors. The paper , written by accounting professors Jeremiah Green, of Texas A&M, and John R. M. Hand, of the University of North Carolina, addressed the first three of McKinsey’s four-installment series of diversity studies.

Green and Hand sought to test the replicability of McKinsey’s findings. Could another set of researchers, using the same data, come to the same conclusions? Since McKinsey refused to turn over its numbers, Green and Hand had to reverse-engineer the firm’s 2015, 2018, and 2020 datasets. The results were startling: Green and Hand couldn’t replicate the results of McKinsey’s first three studies, which monitored the profitability and executive demographics of an undisclosed group of S&P 500 firms and claimed to have found a positive correlation between diverse leadership and firms’ performance. “We do not find a statistically significant positive correlation between McKinsey’s measures of the racial/ethnic diversity of the executive teams of firms” as measured in December 2019, Green and Hand reported, “and either the likelihood of financial outperformance over 2015–2019 or financial outperformance per se over 2015–2019.”

Green and Hand not only were unable to replicate the studies’ findings; they also found that each of the three studies had analyzed the data backward. Instead of looking at a firm’s diversity policies in the years leading up to a given year’s financial performance, McKinsey had reviewed each firm’s financial performance in the four or five years leading up to the year in which its researchers snapshotted their executive demographics. In other words, according to Green and Hand, the positive correlations that McKinsey researchers observed may have reflected “better firm financial performance causing companies to diversify the racial/ethnic composition of their executives, not the reverse.”

Wouldn’t this methodological problem have been obvious to McKinsey researchers? Apparently, it was. Buried in the firm’s 2018 study, its researchers concede the possibility that “better financial outperformance enables companies to achieve greater levels of diversity”—in other words, that more profitable firms may pursue diversity-hiring policies as a result of their profitability. McKinsey’s public presentation of its results, however, has not been so nuanced. As Green and Hand record, Dame Vivian Hunt, a McKinsey managing partner and a coauthor on each of the firm’s diversity studies, claimed in 2018 that “the leading companies in our datasets are pursuing diversity because it’s a business imperative and driving real business results” (emphasis added).

Despite these methodological concerns, major corporations and government entities have cited the McKinsey studies to justify antimeritocratic hiring practices. A series of posts from the think tank America2100 lists several entities, including Raytheon, JP Morgan, and even the U.S. Navy, that referenced the studies in their DEI materials. Intel Corporation executive Jackie Sturn, for example, cited McKinsey’s research as evidence that “diversity is pivotal for long-term economic growth.”

The hyping of these McKinsey studies reflects progressives’ inability to grapple with or even admit the existence of tradeoffs. They do not consider their preferred programs to be the best of a set of imperfect options; rather, their policies represent definitive advances that come with no corresponding downsides. They don’t see the debate over diversity-hiring programs, for instance, as being between inclusion, on the one hand, and meritocracy, on the other. They think that firms can hire candidates at least partially for reasons having nothing to do with those candidates’ qualifications and not suffer any corresponding drag in performance. It can’t be that diversity-hiring programs correct for past injustices and are worth their inherent costs—a straightforward and honest (if misguided) argument—it has to be that diversity programs actually make corporations richer .

Progressive proponents of decarceration do the same thing. They may want to make the normative case that America’s legal system is wholly unjust and ought totally to be torn down, but they feel compelled to make an instrumental case as well, one that denies the most obvious tradeoffs of their preferred policy—that it would free murderers and other dangerous criminals. So they insist instead that arresting and incarcerating criminals actually “ makes us less safe .”

It’s entirely possible that McKinsey will address Green and Hand’s methodological objections and claim vindication for the firm’s original findings. It’s also possible that Green and Hand’s objections are sound, and that McKinsey’s studies are bunk. But if firms are hiring people for important positions at least partially based on irrelevant criteria like race and sex, it doesn’t take a social scientist to deduce that some corresponding decline in performance will result. You don’t need a multimillion-dollar study to tell you what common sense makes obvious.

John Hirschauer  is an associate editor at  City Journal .

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Will New York’s Big Socialist Climate Policy Be Led by ... McKinsey?

The build public renewables act was hailed as a model for socialist green energy policy. but now the new york power authority is asking mckinsey to come up with an implementation plan..

It’s been nearly a year since New York passed the Build Public Renewables Act via its annual budget, a rare attempt from the Empire State’s Democratic supermajority to make good on state climate goals first enshrined into law in 2019. The measure—pushed for by a coalition of climate justice and community groups called Public Power NY, helmed by the Democratic Socialists of America and several legislators they helped elect —mandates that the New York Power Authority, a state-owned power provider, build renewables in order to meet the state’s goal of generat ing 70 percent of electricity from such sources and cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030.

A year in, NYPA is continuing to sort out the details of what that looks like: What kinds of green energy projects will it develop and where? How can NYPA take advantage of new pots of federal funding for renewable energy development furnished by the Inflation Reduction Act? What role will partners in the private sector play? It’s also facing criticisms from the same groups who championed the law. In particular, members of Public Power NY and the Democratic Socialists of America point to a lack of transparency around NYPA’s work with the controversial consultancy McKinsey and Associates.

During a March 26 meeting of NYPA’s board of trustees, NYPA president and CEO Justin Driscoll delivered a presentation outlining the authority’s progress thus far in implementing the BPRA. He explained that, as far as a renewables build-out is concerned, NYPA has been working with McKinsey to “mature our operating model internally and internal governance around the buildout of renewables for the state,” which he had referenced in previous meetings without as much elaboration on their work together. NYPA had just concluded the second of two “sprints” with McKinsey, Driscoll later said, focusing on the authority’s “internal processes” as well as “what project structures might look like, where the partnership opportunities might be, what does the industry look like right now. They’ve got a wealth of information that they bring to us from around the globe.”

NYPA’s expanded authority to build renewables requires that it have a 51 percent ownership stake in any project it develops. “Fundamentally what we’re trying to find is, what’s the NYPA sweet spot? We know what the private sector is doing,” Driscoll added. “What’s our role going to be as we try to identify gaps and fill those gaps so the state can meet its goals?” NYPA’s approach to renewables, he added, is meant to leverage “our strengths in development, ownership, and commercialization to quickly deploy renewable projects for the benefit of the state and its residents.” Driscoll mentioned, as well, that NYPA was working to develop its own internal expertise around a wind and solar build-out, including by hiring a vice president of renewables.

Zack Jones, an organizer with the DSA who attended the meeting, was happy to see some of the progress NYPA was making toward a renewables build-out, but alarmed by the prospect of McKinsey shaping its plans. “There’s still a big lack of transparency into what they’re doing overall, and that’s a concern for us. There have been a few instances where they’re signaling that they’re taking this seriously. In the board meetings it’s a big topic for them, and it seems like they’re taking steps toward putting a band together,” Jones said, referring to NYPA’s work to develop its capacities around a renewables build-out, “but it’s really unclear what the details are of that.”

McKinsey’s role in everything from the opioid crisis to the Puerto Rican economy has generated considerable controversy and even cost it work with the federal government. Still, “the firm,” as it’s known, continues to play a major role in advising government agencies the world over, in some cases providing a rubber stamp for austerity plans and helping—over time—sap those agencies of their own expertise. McKinsey’s work with governments, in particular, has garnered a reputation for dispatching bushy-tailed, handsomely paid consultants to public sectors the world over to “rightsize” operations, often pushing for privatization and harsh cuts to vital social services and benefits.

Public procurement reports published each year by NYPA detail the contracts the authority enters into for everything from I.T. support to construction, parts, and consultant services. The most recent report shows that its current overall contract with McKinsey, for “consulting support services,” began in July 2019 and is scheduled to end this coming July. It’s currently valued at $9.7 million. An NYPA spokesperson declined to comment as to whether McKinsey’s work with NYPA on renewables was part of that broader contract or a new one, or about whether the authority planned to enter into another contract with McKinsey after that one expires.

NYPA has large contracts with other major consultancies, as well, including Ernst & Young, KPMG, and PwC. Currently, it has $40 million worth of active contracts for a range of services with Deloitte, many of which span multiple years. Those include a six-year, $21.5 million contract for I.T. consulting sourcing services as well a five-year, $3.5 million contract for “diversity, equity, and inclusion services.”

Over email, NYPA media relations manager Paul DiMichele said NYPA “occasionally retains consultants to assist with tasks and help drive strategic priorities forward. NYPA selects consultants based on their qualifications and expertise. McKinsey was engaged, through an open bidding process, to help us better understand where private developers have been challenged while developing renewable projects. By doing so, we can better understand where NYPA will find the best opportunities to help the state achieve its decarbonization goals.”

In the year since last year’s budget passed, NYPA has, per the text of the BPRA statute, been consulting with the public and private-sector actors around what implementing its expanded authority on renewables will look like. Last month, the authority issued a Request for Qualifications, or RFQ, to vet renewable developers and investors to work with in developing renewable energy generating projects and storage systems. That RDQ ends this week, and NYPA is due to publish its first biennial strategic plan for renewable energy development in January 2025, which is also required by the text of last year’s budget.

The controversy around McKinsey’s role in that process highlights a tension at the heart of the energy transition. Over the last year, large-scale renewables projects that are eligible to be supported by generous federal subsidies have struggled to get off the ground amid supply chain shocks and rising interest rates. The problem, however, could be a more structural one: Can the investors needed to finance the massive up-front costs of these projects expect attractive enough returns from them to come on board? Companies including the Danish wind developer Ørsted have walked away from major offshore wind projects in recent months after utilities failed to offer more lucrative power-purchase agreements—essentially, contracts to buy a certain amount of electricity—and when state and local governments refused to furnish additional subsidies.

Experts and campaigners have made the case that public ownership offers a possible alternative, leveraging the massive borrowing capacity and lack of profit motive inherent in state-run institutions in order to get cleaner energy built, whatever the cost. The United States, after all, already has a robust network of public power providers: from state-level firms like NYPA all the way up through juggernauts like the Tennessee Valley Authority; Nebraska’s entire grid is publicly owned, whether in public power districts or rural electric cooperatives. Building public renewables at scale, though—as campaigners in New York are experiencing now—involves coming face-to-face with the realities of existing public power institutions.

That means dealing with bodies (i.e., power authorities, power districts, coops) that have lost expertise and funding, are deeply enmeshed in local or state-level politics, or have internalized the idea that the public sector’s role in provisioning public services ought to be as minimal as possible. Political economist Rosie Collington is the co-author, with Mariana Mazzucato, of The Big Con , tracking the rise of major consultancies and the ways that businesses and governments alike have come to rely on them. As they show, consultants’ promise to bring “efficiency” to government operations can sometimes seem like a parody of itself; the British government was at one point paying upward of $1.2 million per day to the consultants tasked with running the country’s Covid-19 test-and-trace program.

Collington notes that government agencies might contract with McKinsey and other consultancies for any number of reasons. For “public sector authorities or bodies that have been underfunded for a very long time,” she told me by phone, there’s often a “combination of genuinely lacking capabilities and capacities to do a bunch of analysis themselves. But that has to be understood within a context where the public sector is seen as the least efficient actor to do analysis itself. That increases the motivation to use external sources of advice.” She noted, as well, that governments might also see a big contract with McKinsey or Deloitte as a means to legitimate major public works projects in the eyes of investors they might hope to court to fund them.

While consultants are now a ubiquitous part of many government operations, their involvement could pose a particular danger to work building out renewables. With lower costs of borrowing and without profit-hungry shareholders, that is, public-sector renewables development has the potential to transcend some of the factors that have constrained private-sector renewable energy development, taking a much broader, public-interest approach to meeting New York state’s climate goals. But relying too heavily on consultants might sacrifice some of the qualities that could otherwise allow the NYPA—and not McKinsey—to share its expertise with public power providers looking to take a similar path. Given McKinsey’s track record, moreover, it’s not exactly outlandish to imagine it would encourage the NYPA to look at potential wind and solar projects like the investors that have balked on renewables before: prioritizing those projects that promise the highest and steadiest returns rather than those best suited to decarbonize New York’s grid as quickly and equitably as possible. As a public-sector entity, NYPA has unique capabilities that private developers simply don’t. It’s also subject to democratic accountability, which Public Power NY campaigners say they hope to take full advantage of in ensuring that the NYPA lives up to its potential.

Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at The New Republic.

• Victor Mukhin

Victor M. Mukhin was born in 1946 in the town of Orsk, Russia. In 1970 he graduated the Technological Institute in Leningrad. Victor M. Mukhin was directed to work to the scientific-industrial organization "Neorganika" (Elektrostal, Moscow region) where he is working during 47 years, at present as the head of the laboratory of carbon sorbents.     Victor M. Mukhin defended a Ph. D. thesis and a doctoral thesis at the Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia (in 1979 and 1997 accordingly). Professor of Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia. Scientific interests: production, investigation and application of active carbons, technological and ecological carbon-adsorptive processes, environmental protection, production of ecologically clean food.   

Title : Active carbons as nanoporous materials for solving of environmental problems

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Comparative investigations of aftersintering of UO 2 fuel pellets

• Theory and Processes of Formation and Sintering of Powdered Materials
• Published: 06 May 2010
• Volume 51 , pages 173–176, ( 2010 )

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The basic parameters of comparative tests of UO 2 fuel pellets produced by the technology of powder metallurgy for aftersinterability using their repeated thermal treatment (aftersintering) in different gas media, namely, with and without humidification, are presented. The results of an evaluation of the level of aftersinterability of these pellets by different procedures is presented, they are analyzed, and a substantiation of the expediency of using this operation manual for evaluating afersintering without the humidification of the gas medium developed at the OAO Machine Building Works (MSZ), Elektrostal’, Moscow oblast, is presented.

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Original Russian Text © V.V. Basov, 2009, published in Izvestiya VUZ. Poroshkovaya Metallurgiya i Funktsional’nye Pokrytiya, 2009, No. 3, pp. 27–30.

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Basov, V.V. Comparative investigations of aftersintering of UO 2 fuel pellets. Russ. J. Non-ferrous Metals 51 , 173–176 (2010). https://doi.org/10.3103/S1067821210020185

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The beauty market in 2023: A special State of Fashion report

The State of Fashion: Beauty

In 2022, the beauty market—defined as skincare, fragrance, makeup, and haircare—generated approximately $430 billion in revenue. Today, beauty is on an upward trajectory across all categories. It has proven to be resilient amid global economic crises and in a turbulent macroeconomic environment. Beauty is now an industry that many people, from top-tier financiers to A-list celebrities, want to be a part of—and with good reason. Following a solid recovery since the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the beauty market is expected to reach approximately $580 billion by 2027, growing by a projected 6 percent a year (Exhibit 1). This is in line with or slightly higher than other consumer segments such as apparel, footwear, eyewear, pet care, and food and beverages.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Imran Amed, representing views from the Business of Fashion, and Achim Berg , Sara Hudson , Kristi Klitsch Weaver , and Megan Lesko Pacchia, representing views from McKinsey’s Consumer Packaged Goods and Retail Practices.

A dynamic segment that is ripe for disruption, the beauty industry will have reshaped itself around an expanding array of products, channels, and markets before this decade is over. Consumers, particularly younger generations, will spur this shift, as their own definitions of beauty morph while their perceptions of everything—from the meaning of sustainability and the role of influencers and key opinion leaders to the importance of self-care—evolve. Overall, beauty is expected to be characterized by “premiumization,” with the premium beauty tier projected to grow at an annual rate of 8 percent (compared with 5 percent in mass beauty) between 2022 and 2027, as consumers trade up and increase their spending, especially in fragrance and makeup.

At the same time, we expect the landscape to become even more competitive, as a range of independent brands that successfully came to market over the past decade seek to scale and as new challengers emerge. Intensifying competition will prompt incumbent brands and retailers to change as well. In line with the trend-driven dynamics in the market, 42 percent of respondents to McKinsey’s 2023 survey of consumers across China, France, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States say they enjoy trying new brands. Meanwhile, consumers are increasingly shopping across price points and report that both online and offline stores influence their shopping behavior. Their preference for omnichannel shopping is expected to continue to fuel legacy brands’ shift online and independent labels’ move into a brick-and-mortar presence.

E-commerce in beauty nearly quadrupled between 2015 and 2022, and its share now exceeds 20 percent, with significant runway ahead. This compares with a 2022 e-commerce share of approximately 30 percent in apparel and footwear, and around 65 percent in toys and games.

A number of factors have fueled e-commerce growth in beauty: the expansion of beauty offerings from online giants like Amazon in the United States and Tmall in China; the increased digital sophistication from direct-to-consumer players; the steadily growing significance of online for omnichannel retailers; and the proliferation of social selling, including livestreaming, in Asia. E-commerce is expected to continue to be the fastest-growing sales channel, at 12 percent per year between 2022 and 2027, but growth in traditional channels—including specialty retail, grocery retail, and drugstores—is expected to pick up postpandemic, as consumers’ preference for omnichannel is partly driven by their continued desire for in-store discovery and trial of products (Exhibit 2). Department stores are expected to continue to lose market share globally.

Structural and competitive dynamics are shifting

Where to play will become just as important a question as how to win, given the changing underlying growth tailwinds. The changing dynamics will render the industry’s largely homogenous global playbooks of the past decades less effective and require brands to reassess their global strategies and introduce greater nuance and tailoring.

Geographic diversification will become more essential than ever. It was just recently, for example, that brands could focus their footprints on the industry’s two top countries: China and the United States. Both countries will remain mighty forces for the industry, with the beauty market expected to reach $96 billion in China and $114 billion in North America by 2027 (Exhibit 3).

But in both markets, growth will be harder to come by for individual brands, not least due to fierce local and foreign competition. Meanwhile, other countries and regions, including the Middle East and India, are ready to step into the limelight, offering distinct potential for specific categories and price tiers. The likely upshot is that many brands will align their geographic strategies to this new world order, which will require a variety of localized playbooks.

Across geographies, another growth opportunity will be products and services in the top tier of the pricing pyramid: the true luxury and ultraluxury beauty market has the potential to double, from around $20 billion today to around $40 billion by 2027.

Five disruptive themes

The next few years will be a dynamic time for the beauty industry, filled with opportunities and new challenges. Its high profitability, with EBITDA margins of up to 30 percent, will continue to attract new founders and investors to the space. With limited spots available on the beauty palette, successful brands will adapt to the changing rules of the game and secure a uniquely differentiated value proposition amid a saturated market and increasingly sophisticated consumers. Key dynamics will include the following:

• The redrawing of the growth map.  Slowing growth in China, along with increased local competition, means the country will no longer be a universal growth engine for the industry. As a result, the US market will become even more important, with strong growth, especially over the next few years. This market will become a competitive battleground for established brands and a potential green pasture for new entrants. The Middle East is expected to fuel growth over the same period, with India expected to emerge as a new hot spot in the longer term.
• The rise of wellness.  As consumers are increasingly engaging with beauty products and services to not only look good but also feel good, the lines between beauty and wellness are expected to continue blurring, with the combined opportunity representing close to $2 trillion globally for brands, retailers, and investors. Wellness-inspired products—such as skincare and makeup with probiotic and Ayurvedic ingredients, ingestible supplements, and beauty devices like LED face masks—have already captured the attention of consumers embracing greater self-care and mindfulness in their postpandemic daily routines. The melding of wellness and beauty will only become more pronounced in the years ahead, in line with an expected CAGR of 10 percent to 2027 for the wellness industry. This trend will represent an untapped opportunity for many, with first-mover advantage for the players that get it right.
• The influence of Gen Z.   Gen Zers scrutinize brands as part of their search for value. Nearly half of Gen Z respondents in our survey report conducting extensive research on product ingredients and their benefits before purchase, similar to millennials (and compared with only one-third of Gen Xers and one-fifth of baby boomers). Beyond product efficacy and transparency, Gen Zers demand that brands credibly stand for something. In addition to their focus on sustainability, diversity, and inclusion, Gen Zers greatly value brands that have an authentic and approachable image and a story that goes beyond products, and that welcome consumers into a wider community. Engaging with beauty products and services to feel good and express their authentic selves rather than adhering to specific cultural ideals, this cohort is challenging norms not only around the definition of physical beauty but also around gender and product categories.
• The imperative to scale.  While the past decade has seen a number of new and independent labels benefit from steadily lower barriers to entry, growth beyond a successful initial run to achieve meaningful scale remains elusive for many. Out of 46 brands founded in or after 2005 with global retail sales of $50 million to $200 million by 2017, only five exceeded $250 million in global retail sales five years later, in 2022. Only two achieved global retail sales of more than $750 million. To scale successfully, brands must focus on omnichannel expansion and internationalization. Category expansion appears to be most effective when a brand has grown to a certain size, and when the expansion enhances and protects the brand’s unique value proposition.
• The recalibration of M&A.  Amid continuously increasing interest in the beauty industry from a variety of players—from “strategics” to private equity funds—M&A will continue to play a major role in the industry. As seen in recent years, conglomerates and financial investors alike will pursue deals to invest in promising brands. But dealmaking will not be the same as when cost of capital was low. In the near term, megadeals will likely be few and far between in response to market turbulence. In addition, criteria for M&A targets will shift from a focus on high-growth independent “brands of the moment” to brands with an innovative product pipeline and a demonstrated ability to grow profitably, sustainably, and over the long term.

The years ahead will offer all the right ingredients—from agile channel mixes to consumers eager to explore new products—for the beauty industry’s continued growth. For beauty leaders and challengers alike, there will be plenty of opportunities to flourish, if they develop and execute tailored strategies that reflect the changing world of beauty.

Download the full report on which this article is based, The State of Fashion: Beauty (PDF–10MB).

Achim Berg is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Frankfurt office, Sara Hudson is a partner in the London office, Kristi Klitsch Weaver is a senior partner in the Chicago office,  Megan Lesko Pacchia is a partner in the New Jersey office, and  Imran Amed is the founder, editor in chief, and CEO of the Business of Fashion and an alumnus of McKinsey’s London office.

The authors wish to thank Anita Balchandani, Dimpy Jindal, Natalia Lepasch, Amaury Saint Olive, Alexis Wolfer, Alex Workman, and Andreas Zampouridis for their contributions to this article.

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