• 28-year-old Aamanh Sehdev was named a McKinsey partner this December.
• After joining as a summer intern, he's climbed the ranks in just seven years.
• Sehdev spoke to BI about how he heard the news and what helped him progress at McKinsey.

Aamanh Sehdev had spent a week in early December trying to distract himself by seeing friends and playing padel.

He'd been an associate partner for two of his seven-year career at McKinsey and knew there was a chance he'd be promoted to partner.

But there was a low number of elections this year, so he thought it was fifty-fifty.

The news usually arrives at the end of the week. But at around 8:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Sehdev received a call at home. It was from Tunde Olanrewaju, managing partner of McKinsey's UK, Ireland, and Israel offices.

"The nerves were kicking in, but he got straight to the point," Sehdev told Business Insider.

"Hey, it's great news. Welcome to the partnership. We're really excited to have you on board," Sehdev recalled Olanrewaju telling him. "I said thanks, but in a slightly higher pitch voice than I typically have."

Sehdev is one of around 200 McKinsey employees promoted to partner this December. Amid a slowdown in demand for consulting services, this year's cohort is one of the firm's smallest in recent years.

The promotion elevates him to one of the most senior positions you can reach in a major consulting firm. Partnerships are participatory, giving individuals a say in the direction of the firm. Those promoted to equity partners receive a share of the annual profits.

On McKinsey's website, partners are described as "not only meeting McKinsey's high bar for exceptional leadership, but they are also dedicated to finding solutions to some of the world's most pressing challenges."

At 28, Sehdev is one of the youngest in the cohort. He spoke to BI about what it was like to receive the news and what it takes to make partner.

'Enjoy the moment'

Although his call with Olanrewaju lasted only a few minutes, Sehdev spent the next hour and a half on the phone with sponsors and mentors.

"Obviously, there was a lot of excitement, a lot of congratulations, and a bit of a common thread of 'let it sink in, don't rush into the next thing, enjoy the moment,'" he said.

He also called his mother and brother that evening. His parents didn't go to university, so it was a major milestone for the family. "They were super proud and excited," he said. "They've obviously been pretty key in shaping my journey."

But the following morning, it was into the office to carry on as usual and keep the news a secret from his colleagues until McKinsey's formal announcement a week and a half later.

Sehdev said he was still digesting the achievement. In the new year, he's taking a 17-day trip to Australia to "carve out a little bit of time to think about it a bit more formulaically."

His first focus is to switch off and get some sun, he added.

Becoming a partner is notoriously difficult and competitive. It's the ultimate goal for many consultants starting their careers.

Not for Sehdev.

When he began studying mechanical engineering at London's Imperial College, Sehdev had never heard of McKinsey.

"It was something that people around me were talking about alongside banking," he told BI. "I turned up to a career fair, it was interesting, and I applied for the internship."

For the first half of his career, Sehdev said he was doing "a bit of a random walk" through a whole host of sectors and different functions. It helped him find the right home at the firm — he now works on a combination of private capital and McKinsey's telecommunications (TMT) practice.

Sehdev acknowledged that seven years was a fast ascent up the ranks, but said that meritocracy was one of McKinsey's benefits.

"What McKinsey has a tendency to do is when you get comfortable, they take you to the next role or level, and then you get uncomfortable again. That snowballed for me over the last seven years."

Sehdev said three reasons he was selected as a partner came through in his evaluation.

First, he always has a focused strategy for what he's doing and what he wants to do next at the firm. Second, he showed entrepreneurship and originality, particularly when it came to creating novel ways to work with the smaller software businesses he concentrates on. Lastly, he invested time with the teams and created a positive, energizing atmosphere.

There's an element of luck involved in it as well, he added, saying he was fortunate to have met managers early on who would stay late in the evenings to teach him.

No matter how good you are, working at a top consultancy can be intense. Sehdev said he carves out time to exercise, spend time with family, and protect his weekends. He doesn't expect that to change now he's a partner.

"My mindset has always been, look, I'll set a really high bar, but I'll not let the micro-events or little things take away too much energy. That's made me better at my job."

• McKinsey will promote about 200 people to partner this year, The Wall Street Journal reported.
• That's down from about 250 partner promotions in 2023.
• Partner payouts at the Big Four consultancies have been falling amid a tough climate for professional services.

Consulting firm McKinsey is promoting one of the smallest groups in recent years to the level of partner.

The firm is only advancing about 200 employees to the coveted position, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday, citing unnamed sources. That marks a 20% reduction from 2023 and as much as half the level of other recent years.

In 2023, McKinsey created about 250 partners, while the number was more than 400 in 2021.

Many employees at major consulting firms view reaching the role of partner as the pinnacle of achievement, a sign of excellence and dedication. Partnerships are participatory, giving individuals a say in the direction of the firm, and those promoted to equity partner receive a share of the annual profits.

That also means any downturn in demand for services hits partners' pockets.

The falling number of partner promotions comes as McKinsey's global staff numbers have grown rapidly. According to its website, there are about 45,000 staff globally, up by almost 50% from the roughly 30,000 people it employed as recently as 2021.

McKinsey did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

McKinsey's partners are not the only senior consultants facing harder times. Partner payouts at the Big Four consultancies have fallen this year.

At EY, partner payouts in the UK were down by 5% this year. UK partners received an average of £723,000 (about $938,000), compared with £761,000 (about $987,000) the previous year.

At PwC, more partners will take early retirement at the end of this year.

Do you work at a consulting firm? Contact this reporter in confidence to share your thoughts on the industry at [email protected]

• McKinsey helps banks and financial institutions with their generative AI efforts.
• It outlined the dos and don'ts of seeing a return on AI investments in a report.
• Business Insider spoke with McKinsey's Larry Lerner about what will separate winners and losers.

The bill is coming due for Wall Street banks' AI investments.

It's been two years since generative AI captured the attention and dollars of bank leaders. They amassed teams of technologists to experiment with generative AI and run proofs of concepts. Some of those have since scaled to enterprise-wide initiatives used by thousands of employees. Now, leaders are beginning to question when these investments will pay off.

"That is the $20 billion question," according to Larry Lerner, a partner in McKinsey's banking practice.

For a handful of firms, Lerner said tangible returns are starting to emerge in the form of current cost savings, future cost avoidance, and incremental revenue. But for many, the reality is "POC purgatory," Lerner said, referring to proofs-of-concept pitfalls where firms get stuck in the experimentation phase and "become very tepid about really leaning in." In those cases, the "institution has spent the last two years investing and investing and not seeing anything at all," Lerner said.

According to an October report from Evident AI, which tracks AI adoption in financial services, only six out of 50 banks disclosed dollar-level cost savings or revenue lifts as a result of their AI investments.

So, what separates the frontrunners from the laggards? According to fresh research from McKinsey, it can come down to a few key decisions around concentrating efforts on a couple of uses, having CEO buy-in, and using generative AI in conjunction with other technologies. Most of all, it'll involve a mindset shift where AI is viewed and treated as a business opportunity rather than a technological problem, Lerner said.

Lerner outlined what will separate the winners from the losers. He declined to comment on specific companies.

Viewing AI as a business problem, not a tech one

Leadership teams have to recognize that generative AI is a business opportunity, not just a technology play, Lerner said. Because of that, he said business leaders should bear the brunt of the accountability, rather than that responsibility falling solely on tech leaders' shoulders.

"The institutions that make business leaders accountable for delivering their results will over time tend to do better because there's a much stronger partnership," Lerner said.

Concentrating firepower

Generative AI has lead to more value when there are only a handful of use cases, instead of every business unit doing a little bit here and there and seeing what sticks, Lerner said.

"Instead of having 60 use cases across 15 different business lines and functions, narrow down to three areas where you want to go deep," where you're reimagining the entire domain or workflow has led to a faster path to value, Lerner said.

Choose areas where ROI can actually be tracked

It's becoming increasingly clear that generative AI's main strength in saving workers time can't always be traced back to bottom-line impact, which is leading to some frustration in the boardroom.

"The value of what you're doing depends on how you're going to repurpose your time, and that's really hard to do," Lerner said. "Because it's an indirect sort of lever, it's very difficult to actually measure and get people to agree that there's value."

On the other hand, AI tools like call-center copilots and AI-powered marketing campaigns that improve the customer experience can generate incremental value that is measurable, Lerner said. One large bank referenced in the McKinsey report is projecting a 10% revenue increase thanks to a new analytics platform to target new customers and cross-sell products to existing ones.

For buy now, pay later fintech Klarna, leveraging an OpenAI-powered call center agent is estimated to bring some $40 million in profit this year, the company said in a blog post earlier this year. At the time, the AI was doing the work of 700 full-time agents, according to Klarna.

Lerner said he's starting to see some banks modify forward-looking hiring plans, especially in the contact center, thanks to the increase in self-service and faster resolution times. "That cost avoidance is absolutely measurable," he said.

Reusability is key

Build something once and redeploy it a hundred times, Lerner said. Doing so can accelerate development times and let companies scale faster because the tool has already gone through the required risk, security, and compliance approvals, he said.

Execution will come down to adoption

Getting workers and customers to adopt a new way of doing something or a new technology is one of the most important parts of the value equation. It's an old challenge that banks have had with previous technology cycles. When it comes to AI, "most companies have done a pretty bad job of getting adoption to the level that's going to yield the results that they want to yield," Lerner said.

• Consulting firm McKinsey has agreed to pay over $122 million to settle bribery claims.
• The plan earned McKinsey and McKinsey Africa profits of about $85 million, the US DoJ said.
• A former senior partner at the firm's Africa division pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge.

McKinsey has agreed to pay more than $122 million to settle bribery claims stemming from its work in South Africa, the US Justice Department said in a statement on Thursday.

The payment forms part of a three-year deferred prosecution agreement that would dismiss the charges if McKinsey met certain conditions.

The consulting firm was under investigation for its involvement in a plan to pay bribes to officials at two state-owned and operated companies in South Africa between 2012 and 2016.

According to court documents and admissions, a senior partner agreed to pay bribes to receive confidential and non-public information from officials at Eskom, South Africa's largest energy company, and Transnet, a port and freight rail operator, which helped secure multimillion-dollar consulting contracts. Under the arrangement, McKinsey Africa's partners paid a portion of their fees as bribes to officials at Transnet and Eskom.

The Justice Department said that McKinsey and McKinsey Africa earned profits of about $85 million as a result of the arrangement.

The firm was charged with one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) in the Southern District of New York.

"McKinsey Africa bribed South African officials in order to obtain lucrative consulting business that generated tens of millions of dollars in profits," said Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Nicole M. Argentieri, head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division.

A former McKinsey senior partner, Vikas Sagar, separately pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the FCPA.

In a statement, McKinsey said that Sagar had concealed his conduct from the company and had been fired. It added that fees had been repaid to Eskom and Transnet several years ago.

"We publicly apologized in 2018 and chose to take accountable action, including taking responsibility for Sagar's conduct," McKinsey said in the statement.

"McKinsey welcomes the resolution of these matters and the closure of this regretful situation. McKinsey is a very different firm today than when these matters first took place," the firm said.

McKinsey and Company Africa operates in South Africa as a wholly owned and controlled subsidiary of the international consulting firm. The $122,850,000 that the firm has agreed to pay includes a penalty in South Africa.

The Justice Department said McKinsey Africa had received credit for cooperating with its investigation and conducting anti-corruption training for employees.

McKinsey, which is widely considered one of the top three strategy consulting firms in the world, is also close to paying $600 million to settle a separate investigation into its work advising opioid manufacturers on how to boost sales, the FT reported in November.

• McKinsey, Bain, and BCG are top strategy consulting firms with low acceptance rates.
• These firms, known as MBB, serve Fortune 500 companies and offer competitive salaries.
• MBB firms provide prestigious exit opportunities, often leading to senior roles in various sectors.

McKinsey & Company, Bain & Company, and Boston Consulting Group — collectively referred to as MBB — are widely considered the top three strategy consulting firms in the world.

Sometimes referred to as the Big Three, MBB firms are among the most prestigious consulting firms and their clients include many Fortune 500 companies as well as government agencies.

CEOs often turn to these firms for their expertise in business strategy and solving complex problems, whether it's handling mergers and acquisitions or budgeting and cutting costs.

Jobs at MBB firms are famously difficult to land and are among the most sought-after positions for MBA students at top schools. The acceptance rates for these firms is less than 1%. Applicants to top business schools are also far more likely to be accepted into MBA programs if they come from an MBB.

MBB firms typically offer highly competitive salaries, generally paying more than other consulting firms, and often come with demanding work responsibilities and expectations.

MBB firms are also well known for the exit opportunities they provide — employees at these firms are highly sought after for other jobs and often end up with senior positions at Fortune 500 companies, startups, hedge funds, and private equity firms, or start their own companies.

The Big Three is sometimes confused with the Big Four, which refers to the professional services firms Deloitte, EY, KPMG, and PwC. The Big Four are the largest accounting firms in the world though they also offer consulting and other services.

The MBB firms are strategy and management consulting firms. Here's how they compare.

McKinsey & Company

McKinsey is typically considered the most prestigious of the Big Three. It's also the oldest and was founded in 1926.

Headquartered in New York City, McKinsey is also the largest of the MBBs, with more than 45,000 employees across 130 offices worldwide.

McKinsey generated around $16 billion in revenue in 2023 and is led by Bob Sternfels, who serves as the firm's global managing partner and chair of the board of directors.

McKinsey told Business Insider it receives more than one million job applications each year and that the company planned to hire about 6,000 people in 2024, about the same as the year prior.

That would mean McKinsey hires around 0.6% of applicants.

McKinsey's average base salary for new hires out of undergrad is $112,000 and for MBAs $192,000, according to the company Management Consulted, which provides students with coaching for consulting interviews.

McKinsey is notorious for its demanding workload, with even entry-level analysts working 12 to 15 hours a day. One former employee told BI that the experience took a toll on her mental health but she came away with confidence and a Rolodex of contacts.

Boston Consulting Group

BCG was founded in Boston, where it is still headquartered, in 1963. The company had 32,000 employees as of 2023 and 128 offices worldwide.

BCG had a global revenue of about $12 billion in 2023.

BCG is led by Christoph Schweizer, who has served as CEO since 2021, and Rich Lesser, the Global Chair of the firm.

BCG's head of talent, Amber Grewal, told BI more than one million people apply to work at the company each year and that only 1% make the cut.

Amid the boom in generative AI the firm is hiring for a wider mix of roles than it did in years past. "It's going to change the mix of people and expertise that we need," Alicia Pittman, BCG's global people team chair previously told BI.

The average base salary at BCG for hires out of undergrad was $110,000 in 2023 and about $190,000 for MBAs and PhDs, according to Management Consulted.

Bain & Company

Bain was founded in 1973 and is also headquartered in Boston.

The smallest of the Big Three, Bain has around 19,000 employees with offices in 65 cities around the world.

Bain's revenue in 2023 reached $6 billion, according to the Financial Times.

Bain is helmed by Christophe De Vusser, who serves as the worldwide managing partner and CEO.

Bain's average base salary for undergrads in the US is around $90,000, while for new hires with an MBA or PhD it was around $165,000, according to Management Consulted.

Despite the grueling hours and high expectations, Bain is known for a collaborative culture.

"We have a motto, 'A Bainie never lets another Bainie fail,'" Davis Nguyen, a former consultant at the firm, previously told BI. "We all work together from entry-level associate consultants to senior partners. I think that is what makes Bain's culture what it is — that we all work together to achieve a goal and make everyone around us better."

Bain is also considered the "frattiest" of the top firms and is known for a "work hard, play hard" culture, according to Management Consulted.