When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm

by Walt Bogdanich

Barton’s successor, Kevin Sneader, thought it was important to visit Johannesburg, where he hoped to extinguish any remaining embers of anger. Speaking to a business group early on a Monday morning in July 2018—two weeks after The New York Times published a critical article about the firm’s work in South Africa—Sneader used the word “sorry”119 eleven times. “The stories written about us in South Africa hurt deeply as they strike at what we value more than anything else—the trust we have built with our clients through the judgment, character, and reputation of our people.” Sneader admitted that McKinsey was too distant to grasp the rising anger in South Africa. “Our governance processes failed. Our commercial approach led to a fee that was too large. We did not admit we were wrong. And worse, we did not say sorry quickly enough and clearly enough.”