On leap day, February 29, 1996, McKinsey.com went live and quickly drew readers from 20 countries. The internet was still in its early stages of adoption, and many executives were only beginning to explore what a digital presence could mean for their businesses.
Launching a website was, at the time, a deliberate leap.
Thirty years later, that decision reflects a visionary mindset that continues to shape how we share insights and impact stories, and how we engage in conversations—both with the colleagues who power our work and the CEOs who rely on it. It also reflects a broader conviction, especially as McKinsey enters its second centennial this year, to help clients make forward-looking moves during moments of change.
When it launched, McKinsey.com was a simple site that explained who we are and what we do and offered a small set of articles. Yet even in its earliest form, the ambition was clear: to make our thinking more accessible beyond the printed page.
Three years later, McKinsey Quarterly, the firm’s flagship publication, which has been in print since 1964, went online with its own separate site. Today, McKinsey.com has grown into the central platform for the firm’s industry insights and impact storytelling, translating analysis into clear, actionable takeaways.
As Raju Narisetti, global leader of McKinsey’s Publishing and Marketing teams, notes, our objective has always been to help leaders move from knowledge to insight—and from insight to measurable impact.
“For three decades, McKinsey.com has been about making our best thinking broadly accessible to leaders so they can make better decisions,” Raju says. “Whether it’s a long-form report, a podcast, or stories about our clients’ impact, our goal is the same: Deliver insights that are actionable.”
Two pivotal reinventions accelerated that journey. In 2001, after extensive user research, we redesigned the site for easier navigation and to better showcase the firm’s insights—while also introducing richer storytelling and a more robust user experience for job seekers. In 2013, McKinsey.com brought McKinsey Quarterly’s online presence under one digital home, while the McKinsey Insights app debuted, signaling a shift toward mobile, personalized, on-demand access for executives.
Over 30 years, McKinsey.com has expanded both its reach and its capabilities:
- 1996 – McKinsey.com launches, introducing the firm to a global digital audience.
- 1999 – McKinsey Quarterly starts its own site, mckinseyquarterly.com, making its articles available to the public.
- 2001 – A newly launched “Careers” section of McKinsey.com includes 1,000 profiles of our people.
- 2013 – McKinsey.com undergoes a major refresh, and mckinseyquarterly.com is folded into it. The McKinsey Insights app launches, offering a personalized content experience based on user-selected topics.
- 2019 – McKinsey.com publishes the firm’s first named client story, meeting audience demand for examples of how we work with clients.
- 2021 – McKinsey on Books is a newly added section to the site, featuring our popular Author Talks series of video interviews with authors of new business books, as well as a full catalog of titles by McKinsey authors.
- 2022 – McKinsey Explainers debuts, delivering direct answers to complex questions across a diverse set of topics, including digital, technology, marketing, sustainability, strategy, and organizational performance—all based on original McKinsey insights and often paired with interactive quizzes.
- 2024 – McKinsey Publishing Guides, the firm’s first email-based learning journeys, launch to provide structured, practical development on topics such as problem-solving and leadership.
- 2025 – Ask McKinsey, the firm’s proprietary AI-powered bot, launches to provide readers with answers to their specific questions, all backed by McKinsey’s trusted research.
Each milestone reflects a change in how leaders consume information. And while articles and reports remain foundational, interactive data visualizations, podcasts, videos, quizzes, and other formats now complement more traditional publishing methods, giving time-pressed executives a broad range of engaging options.
For leaders managing geopolitical volatility, technological disruption, and increasingly complex leadership and stakeholder management, McKinsey.com offers a valuable source of research-backed insights and examples of impact. Through stories about colleagues and alumni, the site also gives recruits a glimpse into how the firm approaches problem-solving and lives its values.
Thirty years after its leap day debut, McKinsey.com is both an archive and an innovation lab: a curated collection of insights that have shaped boardroom agendas around the world. At the same time, it continues to experiment with new ways to deliver ideas—creating a content experience that is faster, more interactive, and more personalized than ever.
As we mark this milestone, we are grateful for the time you spend with our publications. Your engagement and feedback shapes how we evolve to meet emerging needs. Looking forward to hearing from you at newideas@mckinsey.com.
Stay tuned.