Get to know the Southern Office Colleagues

North America

Laura Medford-Davis
Associate Partner
Houston

June 4, 2020Laura has enjoyed the best of both local and travel staffing opportunities. As an Emergency Room doctor (yes, she still has the flexibility to practice medicine using Firm flexibility programs) and Advanced Professional Degree (APD) hire, Laura made a home in healthcare, specifically in our Healthcare Practice. During her first study, she was staffed with Southern Office leadership to ensure she had local sponsorship, but the team’s leadership also included the Midwest, West Coast, and Mid-Atlantic Offices, providing her with broad exposure to Partners across the U.S. Laura thinks local and non-local support were key to finding interesting work in the practice she is passionate about as she places more emphasis on project and impact rather than location at this point in both her life and career. Laura also speaks Spanish, was excited to prioritize an in-person client engagement in Latin America to add to her list of diverse staffing experiences.

On her path to Partner, Tiffany worked with global consumer and retail leadership to innovate how retailers operate and evolve to new “store of the future” operating models. Tiffany's journey has been a fantastically fulfilling one, working with friends – both colleagues and clients – focused on content that truly gets her excited (stemming from her college days as a store associate).

Collaboration and flexibility are the cornerstones of the experience. For Tiffany this means working hand-in-hand with other Partners to bring the best of the Firm in a world where nobody is looking for credit, it’s just about a win for clients and McKinsey. Also, Tiffany has enjoyed leveraging the gift of flexibility along the way given what else is going on in her life!

After a year as a Business Analyst at McKinsey, Chandler has experienced first-hand the sense of community that thrives among BAs in the Dallas Office. From his first day at the Firm, Chandler felt welcomed into the Dallas Office BA community and supported as he started his first engagement. Frequent formal and informal office events have fostered an environment in Dallas where BAs are invested in each other’s well-being and success at McKinsey. BAs in the Dallas Office encouraged Chandler to get involved in the Dallas Office’s community engagement and people teams, allowing Chandler to serve local non-profits in pro-bono engagements and to further contribute to the supportive firm culture.

Holly believes mentorship is unmatched at McKinsey and that it is one of our Firm’s strongest assets and biggest differentiators. For example, when Holly was transitioning from the Associate to Engagement Manager role, two women took her under their wings to create Holly’s favorite study at the Firm, which provided her first taste of retail and client “home” where they still work together today. Over the past 4 years, these two specific women have continued to define the definition of not just mentors but “sponsors”; specifically, they created opportunities for Holly to transition into the AP role and split time, gave her advice and tough love guidance at some tricky points, and helped her come back to active studies after having her first child (the “ramp back up” period!). Because of the amazing experience Holly has had with her own mentors/sponsors, she aims to create the same with her mentees, connecting regularly on topics ranging from staffing opportunities, how to incorporate development feedback from study to study or level to level, thinking about next steps in school/career, and handling tricky conversations with teams and clients. Mentorship is one of Holly’s greatest sources of energy at McKinsey.

Molly Squire
Engagement Manager
Charlotte

After graduating from UVA Darden in 2017, Molly knew she was eager to continue her career in an environment that felt more like family than work. She found an incredibly supportive and familial culture in the Charlotte and Southern Office communities. Molly has found loads of opportunities to get involved with support from her local and regional leadership teams. Over her 3 years, she has played an active role as a member of the Davidson, Darden, and Charlotte recruiting teams, she’s a member of the Charlotte location social committee, and she is on the planning team for the Southern Office’s Women’s Reconnect retreat. The supportive culture in the South has encouraged Molly to get involved and get to know people in her region which has been a highlight of her McKinsey journey.

The culture at McKinsey is the reason Bo has stayed at the firm since joining as a BA in 2009, and returning after a two-year leave to run operations at a digital media start up. Bo feels he has benefited from the Firm’s caring meritocracy and felt every step along the way came with sponsors and mentors creating exciting opportunities for him. Specifically, he feels, “We often forget how lucky we are to receive apprenticeship from the best leaders in business on a daily basis – and in a manner that’s constructive and rooted in support and inclusivity.” He continues to benefit from the same coaching and compassion of firm leaders as a Partner, and focuses on sharing this same culture and values with our BA community as he leads the Marketing & Sales (M&S) North America BA program.

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