March 10, 2021
Bob Sternfels has been elected the new global managing partner of McKinsey & Company. Bob was elected by the firm’s approximately 650 senior partners to serve a three-year term beginning July 1, 2021. He will be the 13th partner to lead McKinsey since its founding in 1926.
Bob, 51, is based in San Francisco and currently leads McKinsey’s client capabilities globally. In this role, Bob has focused on expanding the firm’s capabilities in digital and advanced analytics and, more broadly, on ensuring that the firm continues to meet the changing needs of its clients. He follows Kevin Sneader as global managing partner.
Bob Sternfels said, “I am honored to be chosen by my peers as the next global managing partner of McKinsey. Working together with my partners and colleagues, I am determined to use this moment to make our partnership stronger, more inclusive and better able to help our clients thrive in a fast-changing world. I am also committed to build on the important changes that Kevin helped launch and our partnership embraced—and on the good work our firm does with our clients and in society.”
Under Kevin Sneader’s leadership, the firm both expanded its positive impact with clients—including during the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic—and implemented a range of important governance changes. In 2019, McKinsey’s board of directors adopted a more rigorous client selection policy, and the firm has continued to strengthen and scale up its legal and risk control functions. McKinsey has also expanded its commitments to social impact, including increasing its support of Generation, the nonprofit the firm founded in 2014 to address youth unemployment, and announcing ten actions to advance racial equity within McKinsey and society.
Current global managing partner Kevin Sneader said, “Over many years, I have seen firsthand the skill, passion and intellectual curiosity that Bob brings each day to support his colleagues and clients. In leading our client capabilities for the past three years, Bob has consistently pushed our firm to raise our sights, innovate and ensure we can always deliver the best possible advice to our clients. I look forward to working with Bob to help our clients thrive, support our people and strengthen our firm and partnership for the future.”
Bob, a US citizen, has worked at McKinsey for 26 years, joining the firm in San Francisco in 1994. After growing up in Lodi, California, Bob was educated at Stanford University and the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. During his time at the firm, Bob has worked with colleagues in nearly every McKinsey office in the world.
Before assuming his current role leading client capabilities, Bob led the Operations Practice in the Americas and the Private Equity & Principal Investors Practice globally. He is also a member of McKinsey’s elected board of directors, known as the Shareholders Council.
Bob is a member of the internal advisory council for the McKinsey Institute for Black Economic Mobility. He serves on the board of the nonprofit QuestBridge, on the advisory board of USA Water Polo, and as a trustee of the Rhodes Trust. He is also an enthusiastic private pilot.
Learn more about Bob here.
For more information, please contact
DJ Carella – DJ_Carella@mckinsey.com / +1 202 662 1168
Graham Ackerman – Graham_Ackerman@mckinsey.com / +44 20 7961 5772
About the election process
Candidates are nominated and elected by McKinsey’s senior partners. The election is a staged process:
- In the nomination round, senior partners nominated seven candidates by preference.
- In the second round, the slate comprised the ten candidates (from the nomination round) who received the greatest number of absolute votes. Senior partners voted in order of preference.
- In the final round, the two strongest candidates from the second round, as defined using the Single Transferable Voting Method, stood for a final vote. Bob Sternfels received a majority of votes and was elected.
The election of McKinsey’s global managing partner was conducted by an independent third-party firm. The election was overseen by an Election Administration Committee, composed of former senior partners of the firm who remain affiliated with the firm and/or current senior partners who are ineligible to serve as managing partner.
The global managing partner may serve a maximum of two three-year terms, subject to age eligibility. Previously the global managing partner was able to serve three three-year terms, but in 2016 the firm reduced the maximum service to two terms.
About McKinsey & Company
McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organizations create Change that Matters. In more than 130 cities and 65 countries, our teams help clients across the private, public and social sectors shape bold strategies and transform the way they work, embed technology where it unlocks value, and build capabilities to sustain the change. Not just any change, but Change that Matters – for their organizations, their people, and in turn society at large.