The Firm

They helped invent the bar code. They revolutionized business schools and created the corporate practices that now rule our world. McKinsey employees are trusted and distrusted, loved and despised. They are doing behind-the-scenes work for the most powerful people in the world, and their ranks of alumni include the chairman of HSBC and William Hague. Renowned financial journalist Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts but also become mired in controversy across the years.

Discover how the firm celebrated Enron’s disastrous corporate structure and how they’ve been instrumental in the government’s controversial NHS reforms. Are they worth their astronomical fees? And what do firms and governments actually get for their money?

Based on exclusive interviews with key McKinsey players and written in gripping prose, this is a revealing window onto one of the most secretive and powerful companies in the world.

“'Fascinating. If you want to know what it is about the culture of the firm that sets it apart and has made it so successful, read this book.'”

'Quickly, McDonald gets into his stride... a rattling good read.'

The Times

'At a stroke, McDonald sums up the attraction of McKinsey to the world’s largest companies, the mystique surrounding its methods, the envy it inspires in competitors and the anger it sometimes incites…  a very readable account.'

Financial Times

'[An] admiring book that nevertheless asks hard questions about the organization’s future.'

The Economist

'Thought-provoking… offers a fascinating look behind the company’s success.' 

-- Andrew Ross Sorkin New York Times

‘Is this a good book? Yes. It is meticulously researched, well-written, and comprehensive and balanced. Is it enjoyable? Yes.’ 

Management Today

'An up-to-date, full-blown history, told with wit and clarity…'

Wall Street Journal

'This is critical reading for anyone who wants to understand how the world of business really works.'

-- Bethany McLean, coauthor of the New York Times bestseller All the Devils Are Here

'Revealing… McDonald combines a lucid chronicle of McKinsey’s growth and boardroom melodramas.'

Publishers Weekly

'Timely.… A fast-paced account of a key business institution, its deeds and misdeeds.'

Kirkus Reviews

-- Liaquat Ahamed, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Lords of Finance

'A superb examination of one of the most powerful, secretive, and least understood organizations on the planet.'

-- William D. Cohan, bestselling author of Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World

Duff McDonald is a New York–based journalist. A contributing editor at the New York Observer, he has also written for The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, New York, Esquire, Fortune, Business Week, GQ, WIRED, Time, Newsweek, and Condé Nast Portfolio, among other publications. McDonald is a regular and frequent guest commentator on both television and radio, including CNN, CNBC, Fox News, NPR, and Charlie Rose. A dual citizen of Canada and the United States, he lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his daughter, Marguerite.

The Firm. They helped create the bar code. They revolutionised business schools and they created the corporate behaviours that now rule our world. They reinvented the idea of American capitalism and ruthlessly exported it across the globe. McKinsey employees are trusted and distrusted, loved and despised. They are doing behind-the -scenes work for the most powerful people in the world and their ranks of alumni include the Chairman of HSBC...In The Firm, star financial journalist Duff McDonald uncovers how these high-powered, high-priced business savants have ushered in waves of structural, financial, and technological shifts but also become mired in controversy across the years. Discover how they played a critical role in building Enron's disasterous corporate structure, and who has been convicted of high level white-collar crime. This is a gripping take on one of the world's most powerful companies...

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