Davis, an upright Englishman with a degree in PPE— philosophy, politics, and economics—from Balliol College, Oxford, was keen for a return to the “values-based” McKinsey, not a growth-at-all-costs McKinsey. He was viewed as being disenchanted with McKinsey’s growing and obvious commercialism and was not a big fan of Kumar, whom some colleagues felt embodied the business-driven culture that had seeped into the firm over the previous decade.
