McKinsey & Company

ABOUT THIS COMPANY:

The McKinsey mystique
McKinsey & Company is a privately owned management consulting firm. Roundly considered to be the most prestigious company of its kind, it has achieved a level of renown so great as to be known even to laymen, despite shrouding details of its work—and its client list—in secrecy. In its practice areas, it addresses strategic, organizational, operational and technological issues, always with a focus—according to the firm—of doing what is right for the client's business, not what is best for McKinsey's bottom line. As for the range of those specialties, the list of industrial sectors the firm serves encompasses everything from commodities and natural resources to the worlds of media, entertainment and high tech. While it doesn't give up the names of its clients, the firm does claim to serve more than 80 percent of Fortune's Most Admired Companies list, roughly 90 percent of the top-100 corporations worldwide and 80 percent of the 100 largest U.S.-based companies. On the public/social sector side, meanwhile, the firm has served 30 governments in OECD countries and some 60 governments in developing nations in the past five years—not to mention five out of the ten largest foundations in the U.S.