Amy

Careers

I joined McKinsey as part of the Asia House Fellowship. I spent my first two years based in Frankfurt, and had the chance to work in many different countries around Europe. In the first year of my stay in Germany, I worked in five different countries. It was a great way to start my McKinsey career, because I was given excellent fundamental skills; I got great training in the basics of consulting. I also had a lot of international exposure, and, along with that, I was exposed to different leadership styles early in my career. This has helped me tremendously, as I am now able to adapt to new environments very quickly.

Friends for Life

During my time abroad, I developed wonderful friendships with my colleagues. I was working and almost living with a group of people who were about the same age as me, so we spent a lot of time together. We worked together and traveled together, and everyone had similar dreams and a similar purpose, so we all got along very well. The people I met during my time in Asia House remain some of my best friends today. We've stayed in touch, and it's something that I really treasure.

Challenging Role

After two years in Germany, I moved back to McKinsey's Beijing office and began the transition to engagement manager. This wasn't necessarily a natural transition for me, because the role I play as a manager is so different from what I was used to. In the past, I was doing just one piece of work; now I am responsible for managing a team and for delivering results to the client. I had to learn how to let every member of the team make a meaningful contribution, and to be considerate and sensitive to the needs of my team, to balance their lifestyle with the needs of the client.

Together, as a Team

I've learned to listen carefully to every member of my team; we hold a lot of discussions, and really build on each other's ideas. They learn from me and I learn from them. This approach served me particularly well on a recent study with one of the largest diversified mining companies in China, just a huge company. The business was very complicated: they were facing challenging market conditions, and needed to make a transformation quite urgently. We were under huge pressure, and I was the EM, so I was sitting in the center of everything.

In working with the McKinsey team, I was able to bring real impact to the client: we made several recommendations regarding the future of their business, suggesting which direction they should take, and our suggestions were very well received. The client was pleased with our work, which would not have been possible without the team-oriented approach we took. I was able to deliver impactful and insightful recommendations to the client that were created by my entire team, all of us listening to and building upon one another.

What I do in my free time / my hobbies

I have a passion for anything fashion related, so I love clothes, jewelry, shoes, and bags. I also enjoy traveling, and spend a lot of time taking trips with friends.