Inside the Strategy Room

By McKinsey Strategy Corporate Finance

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What's Inside the Strategy Room about?

We talk with McKinsey partners and corporate executives on the challenges they face creating lasting strategies in a fast-changing world. We also examine the different ways these executives approach these challenges and the new and innovative ways they think of creating a vision for their enterprises.

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Boards and sustainability

12.29.2020

This is the first episode in a new series on board perspectives around high-priority corporate issues. In this session, Frithjof Lund, a senior partner in our Oslo office and leader of our board services work, speaks with Tomas Nauclér, a ...

Inside the Strategy Room episodes:

08.13.2019 Resilience and value: A CFO toolkit for withstanding shocks While economic downturns are impossible to predict, it is never too early to start thinking about how to weather the next downturn—whenever it comes. Two of our senior partners, Cindy Levy and Martin Hirt, recently talked about how executives can ...
07.15.2019 The diversity opportunity for new CEOs When we talk about organizations we often think in terms of their performance and their overall health. Gender diversity tends to be a subject that many relate to the health part of that equation. But new research has uncovered a ...
07.10.2019 Want better strategies? Become a bulletproof problem solver As the pace of social, economic, and technological change accelerates, organizations everywhere must make increasingly complex decisions in the face of an uncertain future. This is why the value of creative and strategic thinkers capable of solving complex problems has ...
06.25.2019 Creating high-performance innovation teams at scale Most CEOs understand that innovation is a team sport. The challenge leaders face is identifying and nurturing the right combination of people within an organization who are capable of developing winning products and taking them to market. Erik Roth and ...
06.04.2019 Active portfolio management: An interview with Andy West Andy West on recent trends in mergers and acquisitions and the importance of aligning your transaction strategy with your overall strategy. How do you know when its the right time to divest? What strategies do top M A performers employ ...
05.29.2019 The evolution of the CFO CFOs are playing an increasingly pivotal role driving change in their companies. How should they balance their traditional responsibilities with the new CFO mandate?
04.30.2019 The pros and cons of activist investors Management teams who engage positively with attackers may find activist campaigns bring ideas that create value and improve shareholder performance. We investigate the levers activists pull to improve the performance of target companies, activist investor trends globally, and how companies ...
03.07.2019 How to move fast: Innovation at speed and scale Innovation is critical to driving growth. Today we are talking about how large companies can take innovation plays from startups play books to make them more competitive. We will hear from entrepreneurs and McKinsey experts about the techniques they use ...
02.27.2019 Bias busters: How to resist the allure of ‘glamour’ projects Shiny new initiatives can distract you from paying attention to other good but mundane projects and investments. In this episode McKinsey partner Tim Koller, professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney Dan Lovallo, and Sean Brown, discuss why ...
02.20.2019 Bias busters: How to avoid losses and prune projects proactively It’s common for companies to hang on too long to a number of projects or parts of the business that are underperforming but just won’t die. These projects and business units linger because of emotional or legacy attachments that executives ...
02.13.2019 Bias busters: How to be objective about budgets Anchoring bias can hold back the budgeting process and influence your targets despite your best efforts. Address it and refocus difficult conversations. In this episode McKinsey partner Tim Koller, professor of business strategy at the University of Sydney Dan Lovallo, ...
02.05.2019 Bias busters: How to make better decisions with the ‘outside view’ Despite their best intentions, executives fall prey to cognitive and organizational biases that get in the way of good decision making. In our new Bias Busters series, McKinsey partner Tim Koller and Dan Lovallo, an alumnus of McKinsey’s San Francisco ...
12.19.2018 Why long-term value is a winning bet Companies that focus on the long-term outperform their shorter-term peers on a range of economic and financial metrics including revenue and earnings, market capitalization, and job creation. In this episode, Sean Brown is joined by Bruce Simpson, a senior partner ...
12.12.2018 Digital transformation: The CFO's role Michael Bender is the global co-leader of McKinsey Digital and Analytics. He spoke with Sean Brown in London about the role CFOs can play in driving digital transformations, the nature of digital transformations more generally, how digital and analytics go ...
11.28.2018 Make working capital work harder for you Working capital is often an under-appreciated source of cash and value creation. Associate partner Matt Stone speaks with Sean Brown in London about how leading companies are unlocking value by implementing effective working capital strategies and world-class advanced analytics and ...
10.11.2018 How leading CEOs manage their middle tenure There is a wealth of research into how new CEOs should successfully transition into the leading role. Less frequently studied is how top CEOs outperform competitors during the second act of their tenures. Sean Brown talks with senior partner Rodney ...
09.24.2018 How to take the measure of innovation Two simple R D conversion metrics can help executives measure the value of innovation efforts. Senior partner Erik Roth, and associate partners Guttorm Aase and Sri Swaminathan speak with Sean Brown about how companies can gain valuable insights into innovation ...
09.04.2018 Demystifying AI and machine learning for executives Senior partner Tamim Saleh cuts through the hype around AI in this interview and offers clear guidance for executives looking to make precise strategic decisions about where and how to employ AI in their business. Tamim shares insights on the ...
08.27.2018 Building gender diversity on boards Celia Huber, Senior Partner in our Silicon Valley office, on how companies can build and benefit from gender diversity on boards.
08.20.2018 How to avoid digital strategy pitfalls Most digital strategies don’t reflect how digital is changing economic fundamentals, industry dynamics, or what it means to compete.
08.02.2018 Inside the strategy room: One CEO’s approach Deanna Mulligan, president and CEO of Guardian Life Insurance, reflects on how she approaches strategy planning in an industry with strong headwinds.

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