WHEN MCKINSEY COMES TO TOWN

Two award-winning New York Times investigative reporters take down the world’s leading consulting firm, counsel to mega-corporations, dictators, and union-busters everywhere.

“There is no secret society shaping every major decision and determining the direction of human history. There is, however, McKinsey & Company.” So wrote one former McKinsey employee of an organization whose consultants develop strategies to market share and evade legal culpabilities, playing all sides of the field whenever possible. For example, write Bogdanich and Forsythe, McKinsey counseled Purdue Pharmaceutical to boost market sales of OxyContin by organizing sales contests among reps and making claims that patients using the drug would be happier, “a suggestion health officials called ludicrous.” During the Trump years, McKinsey was also awarded millions of dollars in contracts with federal agencies specifically charged with monitoring drugs. Indeed, when Alex Azar left his job as president of Eli Lilly, the authors allege that he went to McKinsey in search of job-seeking advice and soon found employment as the secretary of Health and Human Services. The conflict-of-interest bindings with baneful substances are one thing, but it gets worse. In one damning scene, the authors depict McKinsey helping Disneyland get around the ugly accidental death of a young customer on a ride at the same time the company sought to lay off high-paid maintenance workers who could keep the contraptions running safely. Even more disturbing are the authors’ revelations about McKinsey’s work to improve the reputation of the Saudi regime, taking advantage of “a political phenomenon the royal family wanted desperately to ward off: the Arab Spring,” which was “potentially an extinction-level event for the royal family.” The company, the authors show clearly and disturbingly, suggested the regime give the impression of modernizing by, say, allowing women to drive while cracking down on dissent—which likely led to the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi within the Saudi consulate in Turkey in 2018.

A startling case study of how unchecked corporate power affects world affairs—and all of us.