When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm by Walt Bogdanich — Summary & Review

When McKinsey Comes to Town isn’t your usual business tell-all or cheerleading for management consultants. Walt Bogdanich, a seasoned investigative journalist, teams up with Michael Forsythe to expose the darker side of McKinsey & Company, arguably the most powerful consulting firm on the planet. On paper, McKinsey is this elite, trusted advisor to CEOs and governments alike—a firm that claims to bring clarity and efficiency. But behind the polished image, Bogdanich uncovers a pattern of decisions that often prioritize profit, cost-cutting, and client loyalty over safety, ethics, or public welfare.

The book stitches together a series of jaw-dropping case studies that show what happens when McKinsey’s advice goes unchecked. Take a steel plant in Gary, Indiana, where a McKinsey-backed cost-cutting plan led to layoffs of maintenance workers and slashed parts purchases. The result? Dangerous working conditions, including fatal electrocutions. Yet McKinsey’s role was comfortably insulated by its position as an advisor, not an operator—meaning no one held them accountable.

Or consider the Disneyland example from the late ’90s, where McKinsey’s recommendations to cut maintenance budgets preceded a series of accidents, including a deadly riverboat incident. It’s a chilling reminder that behind every cheerful theme park smile, there can be corners cut to save a buck.

The opioid crisis is perhaps the most damning example. McKinsey advised Purdue Pharma on strategies to aggressively push OxyContin sales, helping fuel one of the deadliest public health disasters in recent U.S. history. This wasn’t just bad advice—it was active participation in a crisis that cost thousands of lives.

And the ethical gray zone doesn’t stop at American borders. McKinsey’s work with authoritarian regimes like China, Saudi Arabia, and Russia raises serious questions about corporate responsibility. Is consulting for oppressive governments just business as usual, or does it make McKinsey complicit in sustaining those regimes?

Bogdanich’s investigation is impressive in scope and detail, backed by interviews, internal documents, and court records. The book doesn’t just sketch McKinsey as a villain but reveals a firm that operates in a murky space where influence meets little accountability. It’s a firm that shapes policies and decisions on a global scale, often with little public oversight or transparency.

That said, the book leans heavily into the negatives. There’s little room given to instances where McKinsey’s advice may have helped companies innovate or governments improve services. It’s a classic case of investigative journalism’s necessary focus on wrongdoing, but it risks painting with too broad a brush.

Still, for anyone curious about how corporate consultants wield power behind closed doors, this book is a crucial eye-opener. It forces readers to rethink the blind trust often placed in consulting firms and consider the real-world consequences of their advice. If you think consultants just help businesses run smoother, think again—sometimes it’s at a steep human cost.