Inside the Strategy Room

The road to becoming CEO is a difficult ascent for even the most seasoned leaders. We discuss the four keys to making that journey a success with Carolyn Dewar and Vik Malhotra, two of the authors of the New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence.   

Carolyn is a senior partner in our San Francisco office who founded and co-leads our CEO Excellence Practice. She works directly with Fortunate 100 client CEOs to help them maximize their effectiveness in the role. Vik is a senior partner in our New York office, who is one of our firm’s most senior client advisors. Vik has served on our board of directors and as our Managing Partner of the Americas, and he currently focuses on counselling CEOs and boards.

Our Voices of CEO Excellence interviews with:

• James Gorman
• Stephen Schwarzmann, and
• Ken Frazier

Our previous episodes on CEO excellence:

• Starting strong: Making your CEO transition a catalyst for renewal
• Leadership lessons from the world's best CEOs

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PepsiCo's design chief Mauro Porcini talks about the role of humanity and
authenticity in driving innovation.

In today’s episode, Mauro Porcini speaks with senior partner Erik Roth as part of our Committed Innovator series of discussions. Mauro is an enthusiastic innovator and design evangelist. He recently published The Human Side of Innovation: The Power of People in Love with People where he describes the power of design to drive sustainable and inclusive growth. He is passionate about unleashing people’s natural innovative tendencies.

In his discussion with Erik, Mauro demonstrates how the best innovations go beyond the need to make a profit and come from an authentic motivation to create something extraordinary for people. He also shares the five different phases that are essential for building an innovative mindset and culture in any organization.

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The chief strategy officer’s role has expanded significantly over the past decade. We look at what it takes to be a successful strategist today.

In this episode we discuss the ways in which strategy leaders’ responsibilities have expanded significantly over the past decade, with many adding other functions to their roles. Sean is joined by Emma Gibbs, a partner in our London office who leads our Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice in the U.K., Ireland, and Israel. Emma serves institutions in highly regulated industries, helping develop strategies at the interface of the public and private sectors. Na'ama Alpert, a consultant in our Southern California office whose client experience spans private equity, technology, and electric vehicles. And Whitney Zimmerman, an associate partner in our London office. Whitney leads our research on the role of the chief strategy officer and strategy organizations. He helps client CSOs define their role and mandate. 

Related insights:

Creating more value with corporate strategy

Strategy Beyond the Hockey Stick 

What Makes a Great Chief Strategy Officer

Rethinking the role of the strategist 

Have you tested your strategy lately?

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In today's episode, Teradata’s chief financial officer, Claire Bramley,
discusses the evolving role of finance leaders with McKinsey CFO, Eric Kutcher.

Today, being a CFO requires harnessing the power of the “and” across many mandates: Playing offense and defense, leading the finance function, partnering with the broader C-suite, navigating short-term budget reallocation, and investing in strategic bets for the future, like investments in sustainability. 

Claire Bramley, CFO of Teradata, discusses what it takes to navigate the macro and micro forces driving today’s unpredictable environment with McKinsey’s CFO Eric Kutcher.

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New research shows that programmatic M&A helps companies outperform peers more than ever, creating value and resilience, even during a pandemic.

In this episode the authors of our recent research on M&A discuss their latest findings that programmatic M&A—doing many small and midsize deals—helps build resilience in addition to outperformance over peers. Jeff Rudnicki and Tobias Lundberg lead our M&A strategy work globally, and Patrick McCurdy is global co-lead of our M&A capability building work. They were joined by Joanna Stone Herman, a partner at the M&A advisory firm Oaklins DeSilva+Phillips. 

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In this second episode of our Voices of CEO Excellence interview with Ken Frazier, the former executive chairman and CEO of Merck candidly reflects on how he managed past crises.

Frazier discusses his decision-making process around the litigation trial concerning Merck’s pain-relief drug Vioxx, and how his employees ensured that a potentially crippling cyber attack did not stop production of critical medicines. He also speaks about how his most important advisor, his wife Andrea, has kept him grounded. 

Frazier spoke with Vik Malhotra, former chairman of McKinsey’s Americas region and co-author of last year’s New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest and Steve Van Kuiken, a former leader in our Life Sciences Practice and global leader of McKinsey Technology. 

Listen to other episodes in our Voices of CEO Excellence series:

• Blackstone’s chairman, CEO, and cofounder, Stephen Schwarzman
• Morgan Stanley’s chairman and CEO, James Gorman

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Take a masterclass with 67 of the world’s highest-performing CEOs and order your copy of the New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

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As CEO of Merck, Ken Frazier gained the respect of his employees, shareholders, and the broader community - both through the company’s performance during his 11-year tenure and also through his handling of several tests of his leadership.

Now Merck’s former executive chairman, he recently shared how his experience growing up during the Civil Rights Movement shaped his career, how he ensured that science stayed at the core of Merck’s mission, and how he sees business’s role in society.

In this, the first of two new episodes Frazier recorded for our Voices of CEO Excellence series, he spoke with Vik Malhotra, former chairman of our Americas region and co-author of last year’s New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest and Steve Van Kuiken, a former leader in our Life Sciences Practice and global leader of McKinsey Technology. 

Listen to other episodes in our Voices of CEO Excellence series:

• Blackstone’s chairman, CEO, and cofounder, Stephen Schwarzman
• Morgan Stanley’s chairman and CEO, James Gorman

Join our LinkedIn community of nearly 90,000 members and follow us on Twitter at @McKStrategy.

Explore our collection of Inside the Strategy Room episode transcripts on McKinsey.com

Take a masterclass with 67 of the world’s highest-performing CEOs and order your copy of the New York Times bestseller, CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.

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Congratulations, you’re a new CFO—now hit the ground running with these seven key mindsets and practices that effective CFOs adopt from day one.

Joining Sean for this episode is Andy West, the global co-leader of McKinsey's Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice, Ankur Agrawal, a partner based in our New York office who leads our CFO and Capital Markets Practice in the Americas, Christian Grube, a partner in our Munich office, and he leads our CFO and Capital Markets practice across Europe, and Lauren Cooks Levitan, the CFO of Faire, a global wholesale e-commerce marketplace.

Articles mentioned in this episode: 

• Starting up as a CFO
  
• The evolution of the CFO
• The Bias Busters Collection 
• The new CFO mandate: Prioritize, transform, repeat

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What does purposeful growth look like in the retail sector? In this episode, McKinsey’s Brian Gregg speaks with two former senior executives at Nike, Christiana Shi and Stuart Hogue, about the strategies that enabled them to lead productive teams in the retail sector. The conversation touches on the importance of nurturing talent, building diverse teams, and identifying opportunities for individual and organizational growth.

We are sharing today’s episode as part of an ongoing collaboration with our Growth, Marketing, and Sales Practice on the topic of growth strategy.  It is also the second episode of the Practice's new podcast called C-Suite Growth Talks, which will feature conversations with leading executives about how they are successfully choosing growth, by aligning around a shared mindset, strategy, and capabilities.  

Links: 

• Episode transcript
• C-Suite Growth Talks podcast
• Mckinsey.com article: 'Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint'
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Today's episode comes directly from our recent European M&A Conference in London, which we co-hosted with Goldman Sachs. Sean spoke with the global leaders of our M&A practice after the conference to get their read on the climate for mergers, acquisitions, and divestitures. Mieke Van Oostende is a senior partner based in Brussels whose client work is focused on financial institutions, and Jake Henry is a senior partner in Chicago who previously co-led our work in life sciences.

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