Emily

Partner

Tell us a bit about your career before McKinsey.

I always describe myself as having had one-and-a-half careers before I joined McKinsey. First I was a research scientist, doing a PhD in molecular genetics, developing new cloning systems for plant genes, and then a post-doc on understanding plant development and what makes the switch between juvenile (can't reproduce) and adult life stages in plants—a question which is very important in agriculture. Then I realised how ill-suited I was to a research career and left academic science for a biotech company, where I had a women-of-all-work role managing our intellectual property, finding deals to do with our technology, and writing the company's business plan. And then I joined the firm, thinking I'd stay here for a couple of years, figure out how to run biotech companies well, and go back to biotech. 12 years later I'm still here.

How did you come to apply to McKinsey?

I was living in Philadelphia, doing my post-doc at the University of Pennsylvania. Someone I'd been an undergrad with at Cambridge was at Wharton, and we used to grab a drink together. He went through the McKinsey interview process, and as part of that had a dinner with a recruiter, who mentioned to him McKinsey was trying to diversify away from 'just' recruiting MBAs, and was really interested in PhDs. He mentioned me to her, and she put me in touch with an ex-PhD who was at that time an EM in Chicago (he's now a director on the west coast). He and I spoke and during that conversation he said to me "If you just want to do science you should not come here, because if you join McKinsey you won't just do science." At that point I thought I did really just want to do science, so I didn't take my application further.

Two years later when I was looking to move on from my biotech job, I had another friend at Wharton who did a summer internship with McKinsey in London. I had decided I wanted to return to the UK, and he mentioned me to his ED, Judith. She had a conversation with me over the phone and suggested I apply. I came to London, went through 2 interview rounds in 2 days, and was made an offer at the end of day 2. I hesitated for about a month because I had another very exciting offer from a biotech company to launch their UK business, and because instead of making me a straight offer, McKinsey said I didn't know enough about business to be really successful, so they would pay for me to do a 1 year MBA at a UK school before I joined the Firm, and I had taken that as a criticism of my performance (which of course, it was!). In the end Judith called me very early one Philadelphia morning and started the conversation by saying "What's stopping you from accepting this offer". During that conversation I realised that the things I had loved through the interview process—the very interesting problems presented in the cases, the clear intelligence and passion of those who interviewed me, and the bit in my offer letter where it spoke about all the assessment, coaching and training I would get, were all very important to me and would make me a lot happier than in the biotech role. So I signed the letter later that week.