Meet McKinsey & Company’s MBA Class Of 2023

Chances are, people will fall back on the same tired clichés. They imagine slick talkers spitting out jargon – or Ivy Leaguers marking up whiteboards and shining up decks. Workers associate management consultants with forgotten initiatives and impending layoffs. For CEOs, they are a second opinion to validate and a fall guy to blame according to cynics.

Growing up, Benno Rosenwald equated management consultants with the characters played by George Clooney and Anna Kendrick in Up In The Air. They were jet-hopping nomads who’d “march into a company and dictate changes, pointing out everything they’re doing wrong.” That opinion evolved as he earned his MBA at Columbia Business School. Completing a summer internship at McKinsey & Company, Rosenwald found that consultants listened more than they spoke. His peers focused on building the long-term relationship over turning the quick buck. Through their work, they revealed the untapped opportunities and unspoken bottlenecks that stifle growth.

THE ”WHY” AND THE “HOW”

Now an associate in McKinsey’s New York City office, Rosenwald defines management consulting far differently. It is more process than prescription, a way of communicating as much as thinking that gains buy-in and spurs action. “What we actually do is integrate ourselves within the companies, collaborating closely with senior VPs and CEOs to discover the best solutions for them,” he tells P&Q. “So, the notion that we just tell companies exactly what to do is far from the truth. Yes, we advise on best practices, but more importantly we tailor our solutions to fit our clients’ needs and create the most value.”

Rosenwald is one of a Baker’s Dozen of MBA hires that McKinsey made from the Class of 2023. Now a year into their work at the consulting giant, these MBAs from schools that range from Harvard and Columbia to INSEAD and London Business School reflect on their experience and what they have learned on the job. In this annual Poets&Quants feature, you’ll not only meet representative members of the 2023 MBA cohort, you will also discover why they chose McKinsey over other consulting firms or other industries and what has been their “only at McKinsey” moment thus far.

Eric Kutcher, a senior partner and McKinsey’s chair for North America, has spent over 27 years at the firm. He describes consulting as a “shoulder-to-shoulder sport.” By that, he means the best engagements are partnerships grounded in mutual trust and respect. In the end, Kutcher believes consulting is an act of anonymous, selfless service – a process of preparing clients so they can step forward, make the case, and drive the results.

“This is about how you make others successful not how we make you feel successful,” Kutcher observes in an interview with P&Q. “I learned this lesson early: it is not about the answer, it is about how you drive an organization to change that makes a difference. The fact that the answer is part of it gives you a North Star to head to. But the real difficult part is how you get an organization to want to get to that North Star. How do you get everyone in that organization to understand why you want to go there and the role that they can play? That’s the most important part of how we communicate. We are helping them articulate the why.”

“EVERY DAY IS DIFFERENT HERE”

That’s one of the skills being learned by MBAs who joined McKinsey & Company in 2023. Now a year into the firm, these graduates have been working to master succinct delivery, persuasive storytelling, and structured problem-solving. Those are just a few of the transitions they have been making. While Jessica Palffy expected to “stretch my thinking” at McKinsey, the University of Michigan Ross School grad didn’t expect to become an expert in certain areas so quickly. In contrast, Andy Chen has been struck by the daily variety he encounters.

“Every day is different here,” explains Chen, a Wharton School MBA who operates out of the Taipei office. “It’s a very exciting environment and a good match for me. What surprised me most is how much my colleagues care about getting to the best answer. It isn’t just a bunch of experts drawing on their past experiences—it’s about getting to the best solution possible, even if it’s something that hasn’t been done before.”

While the Class of 2023 describes McKinsey’s atmosphere as “stimulating” and “collaborative,” they would tag their peers as “supportive” and “best-in-class”. Eric Kutcher sums up the McKinsey team as “people who are gritty, brilliant, work hard, want to make a difference, and believe in what they are doing.” At the same time, Anna Rummel, a graduate of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School, was surprised at how open and fun-loving her colleagues could be.

“I expected it would be a really buttoned up place that was very formal, intellectual, and only focused on business. I found that while people are very intelligent and focused on business, they also are interested in who we are outside of work. We get to know each other holistically rather than just as the people who show up to an office.”

A FILMMAKER AND A SCIENTIST

True to its roots, McKinsey & Company employs consultants with wide-ranging – and unexpected – backgrounds. The MBA Class of 2023 is no different. Take Benno Rosenwald. Before business school, he studied Theater Arts at Stanford University before he moved into filmmaking.

“My proudest moment was producing an LGBTQ+ short film called Femme, which is about being rejected for being too feminine as a man. This project allowed me to share the story of underrepresented individuals on screen. I received messages from people all over the world, especially when we attended a Chinese Underground Film Festival, sharing their stories and thanking us for representing their experiences on screen. Hearing these stories really illustrated how much representation matters.”

Like Rosenwald, Eliane Röösli is also connected to Stanford. Armed with a Life Sciences master’s degree from Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and an MBA from INSEAD, Röösli conducted COVID research at Stanford for her master’s thesis. In fact, Röösli’s findings were published in leading journals, she says, which helped to boost outcomes for high-risk patients. For her, McKinsey has mimicked the best parts of a lab environment.

“I chose McKinsey for the fast-paced team environment and the firm’s expertise in life sciences, which matched my background and interests. Consulting at McKinsey seemed like a natural match for what I wanted, especially compared to the slower pace of research or pursuing a PhD.”

A CORNELL MBA BUILT “FORD TOUGH”

Before McKinsey, Tunde Gafaar worked as a medical doctor in the United Kingdom and earned his MBA at the London Business School. By the same token, Travus White completed his MD at the University of Florida before collecting an MBA from the Wharton School. Such experiences, White believes, enables him to look at issues from a variety of angles at McKinsey.

“I work in our clinical operations space mostly on large hospital system transformations, which allows me to apply what I worked on in residency and fellowship. It’s exciting to improve access to clinical care for outpatients or help patients get home faster and safer from the hospital.”

Looking for a profile in courage? Meet Sofoklis Melissovas, a Harvard Business School alum who operates out of McKinsey’s Miami office. His background is engineering, which included ensuring drilling safety for Shell in the North Sea, home to unpredictable 65-foot waves and 60-knot winds. Over three years, Melissovas says, he maintained a perfect record of no injuries among the 100 people he managed. Usama Arshad, a Dubai-based senior associate, also worked for Shell and earned an MBA from the Harvard Business School. In just 18 months, he helped the company move from a 10% loss in market share to a growth in share. In the case of Firas Dar, a mechanical engineer by training, his biggest achievement made headlines.

“Launching the Ford Super Duty truck was a career highlight before joining McKinsey,” says Dar, a graduate of Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Business. “It was one of the few projects where I was involved from the initial concept all the way to mass production. I put a lot of effort into that vehicle and seeing it on the road is a constant reminder of that hard work.”

Jourdan Henry studied journalism through a scholarship from the White House Correspondents’ Association. He later worked as a product manager for Nielsen before enrolling in Harvard Business School. Eddie Shih, a London Business School grad, worked in finance as an asset and wealth management for BlackRock. And Jessica Palffy made her name in education before signing up with McKinsey.

“I am most proud of the work that one of my mentors and I did with DSST Public Schools, a network of schools that aspires to eliminate educational inequity and prepare students for success in college, career, and life. Our team built the college success program, one of the signature programs for the organization. I am most proud that 100% of students were (and continue to be) accepted to college since the network’s founding. I’m proud of being able to provide more students, particularly from students from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in higher education, with the opportunity to choose a post-secondary pathway that meets their goals and needs.”

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Page 3: Case Interviewing Advice and Profiles of 13 McKinsey MBA Consultants