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Walter Baker

PartnerAtlanta

Enables clients to capture substantial and sustainable bottom-line improvement through better pricing and commercial productivity

Walter is a pricing expert and leads McKinsey's B2B pricing work. He has supported numerous clients across a broad range of technology, industrial, and distribution sectors in the areas of pricing, sales, channel management, go-to-market strategy, commercial productivity, and business strategy.

Recent contributions include architecting a multiyear pricing excellence transformation across all business units of a leading B2B services company, creating a new pricing model and market-entry strategy for a new information-based product offering for a global media company, and establishing a value-based pricing strategy for a revolutionary new product at a leading edge technology company.

Walt regularly leads development of cutting edge knowledge within McKinsey, exploring topics such as dynamic deal scoring, heuristic price optimization, product and solution lifecycle pricing, capturing the full value of innovation, and value-based segmentation. He is also a frequent author with articles in IndustryWeek, CMO Magazine, Journal of Professional Pricing, and the Harvard Business Review, as well as McKinsey publications.

Published work

Pricing: The next frontier of value creation in private equity,” McKinsey & Company, October 2019

What really matters in B2B dynamic pricing,” McKinsey & Company, October 2018

Advanced analytics in software pricing: Enabling sales to price with confidence,” McKinsey & Company, June 2018

Master the Challenges of Multichannel Pricing,” MIT Sloan Management Review, June 2018

Playing every hand better in the pricing game,” McKinsey & Company, December 2016

The pricing renaissance: New ways to reduce risk and unlock value,” McKinsey on Marketing & Sales, April 2015

$200 billion and counting: How to separate profit from risk in times of plunging oil prices,” McKinsey on Marketing & Sales, April 2015

Using big data to make better pricing decisions,” McKinsey & Company, June 2014

The Price Advantage, 2nd Ed., John Wiley & Sons, 2010

Building a better pricing infrastructure,” McKinsey & Company, August 2010

Do you have a long-term pricing strategy?,” McKinsey & Company, October 2010

“The payoff from investing in pricing capabilities,” IndustryWeek, September 2010

Price smarter on the net,” Harvard Business Review, February 2001

Education

Harvard University
PhD, engineering sciences
SM, applied mathematics

MIT
SM; SB, mechanical engineering