Meet McKinsey’s MBA Class of 2019

Masaaki Omachi

McKinsey office: Tokyo, Japan

Hometown: Osaka, Japan

MBA Program, Concentration: Duke University, The Fuqua School of Business, Strategy

Undergraduate School, Major: University of Southern California, Business Administration

Focus of current engagement: Large-scale transformation with an advanced industries client.

Why did you choose McKinsey? Three reasons: First, I wanted to maximize my learning curve, specifically in the field of management and strategy. As an iron ore trader at one of the Japanese trading firms, I felt my learning curve was getting flatter. I wanted to get out of my comfort zone. Second, I hoped to contribute to solving important and difficult problems in the world. After the MBA summer associate program at McKinsey, I felt the firm was truly committed to solving difficult questions. I wanted to be a part of it and make a difference in the world. Third, I planned to explore different industries and functions to find what excites me the most. I am still on that journey and McKinsey is the best place for such a gypsy.

What did you love about the business school you attended? Fuqua enthusiastically provides an environment to let students develop their collaborative leadership style, which is one of the most essential criteria at McKinsey and other places. Also, I love the environment, which encourages that my family easily gets very close with other students’ families. We keep in touch with friends not only in Japan but also in Houston and Hong Kong and everywhere. I believe such an opportunity is hard to find at our age.

What lesson or skill did you learn from training at McKinsey and how has it helped in your role? While I have spent less than a year at McKinsey, one of the skills I learned – and am still developing – is how to structure abstract or vague ideas into a comprehensive format. I find a new takeaway almost every day, learning by exposing myself to different ways of thinking and structuring.

Tell us about an “only at McKinsey” moment you’ve had so far. “Obligation to dissent” is one of McKinsey’s values that consultants in this firm truly cherish. I was surprised how junior colleagues push back on ideas they think are not valuable for our clients and how the teams listen and discuss and problem solve together. For instance, I remember when we were supporting the sales and marketing of a client, a partner suggested we conduct a quantitative analysis. However, our engagement manager questioned that, saying we should focus more on collecting qualitative facts before deep-diving on quants. The partner willingly accepted the idea and we moved in that direction. I had never seen such a moment in my past career.

What advice would you give someone interviewing at McKinsey? If I reflect back on my interview and the advice to be myself, it really worked. McKinsey evaluates both the case and the personal experience interviews and truly wants to know who you are, what your aspirations and interests are, how you lead and collaborate, and how you think. As I prepped for the interviews, I wrote down my stories with details of rationales such as “why I thought in this way and why I did this?” I made sure those were logical and told a story my interviewer could follow.

Who has had the biggest impact on you at McKinsey and how has she/he helped you? My experience with an engagement manager at my first study was eye-opening for me. The way he delivers content and manages the team is my role model. He is a “play hard, work hard” type with a good sense of humor so the six months were really enjoyable as well as really valuable.

A fun fact about me is…upon graduation of junior high school in Japan, I left my family to study abroad to Shanghai, China on my own. The three years in China with a local host family were incredibly fun and exciting.

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