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David Pralong

Senior PartnerCarolinas

Helps organizations achieve a step-change in performance via transformations that focus on core execution, digital enablement, and enterprise-wide agility.

David is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Charlotte office and a core leader of McKinsey’s global Transformation practice. He is also the global co-leader of the firm’s Enterprise Agility practice.

David has extensive experience helping organizations achieve dramatic and lasting improvements in performance through enterprise-wide transformations. He has worked with companies around the world and across industries on transformations that improve an organization’s core execution capability, digital culture and capabilities, and adoption of enterprise-wide agility. He has also led numerous independent due diligences of companies seeking to identify their full performance potential in a rapidly changing world. In addition, David has guided companies under pressure from disruptive market forces through complex restructurings and turnarounds.

David’s most recent experience includes:

  • Orchestrating the comprehensive turnaround of several large organizations in a range of sectors, from telecommunications to banking and mining. Each organization unlocked material free cash flow and increased organizational health.
  • Successfully transforming a dozen organizations to enterprise-wide agility, across sectors and regions. In each instance, this involved working closely with the management team and Board of Directors of these businesses as they explored the potential and suitability of the model. All transformations resulted in significant increases in customer satisfaction, employee engagement, and speed to market while lifting productivity.
  • Working with corporate and private owners to assess the full performance potential of corporations and industrial assets, articulating the upside of functional, organizational, and digital improvements. Often this went on to include the actual turnaround of these assets.

Prior to joining McKinsey, David worked as an equity analyst for a private banking group in Geneva, Switzerland.

David serves on the board of trustees for the Springboard Trust, which helps develop the capabilities of school leaders across New Zealand. He also champions diversity in the workplace in the context of the Champions for Change initiative. He is a native French speaker and is fluent in English, German, Swiss German, and conversational Italian.

Published work

How COVID-19 is redefining the next-normal operating model,” McKinsey Quarterly, December 2020

Bottlenecks, assumptions and myths: Has COVID-19 exposed the true potential of Australian companies?,” SmartCompany, November 2020

Building agile organizations for the next normal,” McKinsey & Company, October 2020

How transformation offices help tech-enabled transformations succeed,” McKinsey & Company, February 2020

A tale of two agile paths: How a pair of operators set up their organizational transformations,” McKinsey & Company, February 2019

Companions abroad: Australia and New Zealand's participation in global flows,” (PDF–153 KB) McKinsey & Company, February 2015

Past experience

Lombard Odier & Cie
equity analyst

Education

University of St. Gallen
MA/MS, accounting, auditing

University of St. Gallen
BComm, business administration