Risk & Resilience

Embrace uncertainty. Embed resilience. Enable growth.

This is a time of extraordinary uncertainty. The complexity and compounding nature of disruptions – from macroeconomic volatility, geopolitical shifts, and climate change to regulatory changes, cybersecurity threats, and public health emergencies – has flipped the risk management playbook on its head.

Uncertainty poses risks. Understanding and managing those risks unlocks opportunities – opportunities to explore new markets, capture share from less agile competitors, make strategic acquisitions, and build trust amongst stakeholders. Opportunities to thrive.

Thriving in uncertainty doesn’t happen by accident. It takes resilience. Resilient organizations prepare for the storms. They respond, foresee, and adapt to emerge stronger.

How we help clients

From the board room to the engine room, we equip organizations to boldly embrace uncertainty, embed resilience, and enable growth. We drive impact by combining a holistic view of the risk landscape with deep industry and regulatory expertise. By leveraging proprietary solutions, advanced analytics, and proven change management tools, we partner with clients on strategy, implementation and capability building – and everything in between.

Respond

We equip clients to respond to critical vulnerabilities and disruptions by addressing immediate risks and gaps across all dimensions of risk management.

Foresee

Through data and analytics-driven scenario planning and stress-testing, we partner with clients to build enterprise risk management capabilities, anticipate risks, and identify growth opportunities. We help clients translate these insights into action.

Adapt

We help clients institutionalize resilience and crisis preparedness across the organization. We embed contingencies within long-term strategies designed to unlock sustainable growth.

Featured capabilities

C-Insights

Advanced solutions for customer assistance and credit loss mitigation

Risk Dynamics

Risk analytics and model governance

Planetrics

Helping financial institutions assess climate risk and opportunity

Impact stories

Digitizing credit risk trims costs and delights customers

By building an analytics engine to support credit decision-making, the bank cut loan approval times from days to minutes.

Building stress-testing models helps a bank reduce risk and improve capital planning

The bank created a suite of models that provide a product-by-product view of profitability and expected growth, improving the... quality and speed of business decisions.

A comprehensive redesign of credit-risk systems and processes

By transforming its credit processes and systems, a leading retail bank lowered its cost of risk to 23 basis points below that... of its competitors.

Boosting profitability in collections

By tailoring collection strategies to each customer segment, a bank’s consumer-finance division reversed a growing trend in delinquencies—and... posted its most profitable year ever.

Creating a leader in compliance

Redesigned governance structure helps leading investment bank instill compliance throughout organization.

Improving the credit underwriting process

Streamlined credit process results in expected loss reductions of $15M in first year.

Our people

Ida Kristensen
Senior Partner, New York
Coleads the Risk & Resilience Practice; advises leading financial institutions on cybersecurity, strategies for risk management,...
María del Mar Martínez
Senior Partner, Madrid
Co-leads McKinsey’s Risk & Resilience Practice and advises financial institutions on growth strategies and organization, innovation,...
Elias Goraieb
Senior Partner, São Paulo
Advises leading Latin American financial institutions on challenges related to strategy, data and advanced analytics, and enterprise...
Akash Lal
Senior Partner, Mumbai
Brings deep expertise in wholesale banking. Works with financial institutions across India, Greater China, and Southeast Asia...
Gökhan Sari
Senior Partner, Istanbul
Leads our Financial Services and Risk Practices in Africa, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East
Anke Raufuss
Partner, Sydney
Advises clients on risk-management projects and leads McKinsey’s work in market and trading risk globally
Marco Piccitto
McKinsey Global Institute Director and Senior Partner, Milan
Leads research and advises leading European financial and industrial institutions on a broad range of risk-management, business...
Daniel Stephens
Senior Partner, Washington DC
Advises senior leaders across the public and private sectors, including in sustainability, financial services, housing, education,...
Luca Pancaldi
Senior Partner, Milan
Brings deep expertise in strategy, risk management, and commercial transformation to financial institutions around the world
Dani D’Amico
Partner, New York
Helps financial institutions navigate complexities and opportunities of trading businesses across risk, capital, liquidity, and...
Linda Liu
Partner, New York
Advises public and private organizations on how to prepare for, respond to, and manage crisis situations

Featured insights

Article

What matters most? Six priorities for CEOs in turbulent times

– With economic troubles mounting, it’s a time to tighten belts and put on hard hats. But don’t forget the jet pack, to accelerate into the next phase of growth.
Discussion Paper - McKinsey Global Institute

Global flows: The ties that bind in an interconnected world

– Economic and political turbulence have prompted speculation that the world is already deglobalizing. But the evidence suggests... that global integration is here to stay, albeit with nuance.
Article - McKinsey Quarterly

A devilish duality: How CEOs can square resilience with net-zero promises

– Amid turbulence on the path to net zero, leaders will have to be much nimbler to balance resilience with an energy future that... is secure, affordable, and clean. Five actions can help.
Issue

McKinsey on Risk, Number 13, October 2022

– Today’s business and public-sector leaders face a risk landscape disrupted at levels that few have seen before and none... has ever confronted as an executive. We have reached a defining leadership moment, where executives are taking a step back and redefining resilience.

Connect with our Risk & Resilience Practice