Each year the Moscow office throws a wonderful New Year’s party for our children. The ambience is warm, cordial and very homey. It is nice to see your colleagues with their kids. Many have two or three, but in this respect I may be the top performer in the Moscow office—I am a mother of four. Most women in our office do not consider having children to be a huge professional problem. If you want a family, no one will ask you to postpone.
“When at work, I even find time to help my kids with their homework, most often with foreign languages. However, on weekends I focus only on my family.”
Convenient schedule
In contrast to many other companies, McKinsey is very understanding about the demands of parenting. The project-based nature of the work is advantageous to women planning to have children. If you are planning to take a maternity leave, you complete all current projects and then do not take up anything new. This approach ensures that you let no one down. Besides, when I was expecting, my colleagues were very supportive; they tried to lessen my load, give me more free time and protect me from stress.
Above all, it is easy to come back. All I had to do was make a call in advance and find out which project I could start with. When I returned to work from my last maternity leave, I arranged to come to the office 3 days a week. Of course, being an associate principal gives you more flexibility, so it is easier to work part-time. But generally McKinsey offers very flexible hours. What McKinsey cares about is results: if you deal with everything required of you while you are at work, this will be the key indicator of your performance.
Family weekends
When at work, I sometimes find time to help my kids with their homework, most often with foreign languages. Their grandparents speak only Russia and can’t help with this! On weekends I focus only on my family. We often go skating and tobogganing. We travel and go alpine skiing together. Each Sunday we do some horseback riding at one of the suburban Moscow riding clubs (this is a long-standing family tradition). Three of my four kids are already at ease on horseback, while the youngest will probably soon start riding a pony. So I would not say my work makes my kids feel attention-deprived. My eldest keeps asking, “Don’t you have to go to work?”
I enjoy my work
My children may not understand exactly what I do in the office, but they do see that I really enjoy my work. McKinsey has given me all the diversity I could want, both in terms of industries to work in (the choice is wide and varied) and the functional content. My projects could include organizational transformation, risk management and strategy development, including market-entry strategies. I am an expert in bank risk management. This is very interesting for me, and expertise in this area is very much in demand. With the world economy hit by wave after wave of crisis, the banking environment keeps changing, and banks must change with it. There is increased understanding of the importance of optimizing risk-management systems. When a project turns out well, it really makes you feel good. I remember helping a client bank fine-tune its management of nonperforming loans, which later saved several billion rubles. An experience like that is unforgettable, and McKinsey allows you to have it over and over again.