Why does McKinsey still get hired? | Peter O'Toole

The famed consulting firm is expected to pay a $600m settlement over its role in the US opioid crisis. But the company's problems don't start there

In late 2005, I was in a Tokyo meeting room with some top GE executives. As the company's corporate director of public relations at the time, I was helping sort through a corporate initiative we were planning to announce with some important Japanese customers. A few minutes later, a handful of people I'd never met came into the room. Most were not from Japan; all of them, I was told, were from McKinsey, perhaps the world's most famous management consulting firm. Following the 15-minute meeting they had probably flown in from all over the world to attend, they left.

The firm McKinsey, of course, remains, dispensing advice to thousands of companies like GE and to governments and institutions in more than 65 countries. But as the company approaches a $600m settlement with the US government over its role helping opioid makers boost sales and drag out the painkiller epidemic, you might ask: why does McKinsey still get hired?

Peter O'Toole is principal of Objective Lab and on the adjunct faculty at Georgetown University. He was a speechwriter in the Clinton administration and a senior executive at GE and Pfizer