The thing I love the most about McKinsey: how diverse and strong we are together!
Hi again everyone. In today’s post, I want to share my amazing experience of the firm’s Values Day, the first months of my business analyst journey, and my first engagement which showed me how diverse and strong McKinsey people are together!
Hi again everyone. In today’s post, I want to share my amazing experience of the firm’s Values Day, the first months of my business analyst journey, and my first engagement which showed me how diverse and strong McKinsey people are together!
In the last post, I shared a little bit about how I’ve joined the firm through a women's campaign called “A place for you”; and one of the things that helped me most during the selection process was attending various McKinsey recruitment events. All of them had something in common: the consultants saying with passion that the best thing about the firm are the people. And this could not be more true now, during the COVID times. In my daily routine, I do feel that even if life now is not quite what it used to be, there is something that will remain the core of our firm: distinctive impact and constant mutual support. And this mindset permeates the organization as a whole and the team's work within a project.
On June 19th, we celebrated the firm's Values Day: colleagues around the world were invited to together reflect on our purpose. We listened to our colleagues’ stories on impact that illustrated how we are helping create positive and enduring change in the world. On that day, the value that marked me most was how we are united to create an unrivaled environment. It is true that we live our values on daily basis and I observed it during my first engagements: how we reinforce the firm's adherence to the highest ethical and professional standards to serve the client, and how we share our commitment to assist mutual development through learning and mentoring.
During the first months of my business analyst (BA) journey, I participated in a series of events in which people of different tenures helped us BAs and new hires to understand how to navigate the firm, and supported us to understand how to leverage our entrepreneurship and ownership. Most of these events were organized by BA Hub, a support group of business analysts who aim to provide constant help to the needs of us BAs. One of these events was the “Women2Women Dialogues”, a round table with our associate partners, engagement managers and members answering our questions about career, sponsorship, and how to create our own McKinsey.
Besides, I have been allocated to an engagement related to digital transformation in consumer health industry, where I had the opportunity to work with a truly diverse team, in which everyone supports each other to help deliver a relevant impact to the client, develop skills and grow within the firm. I feel so fortunate to be surrounded by inspiring people who I genuinely like and enjoy spending my time with. I’ve learned a lot from my colleagues: how to build a client journey in UX from Andressa, a designer that won a Cannes prize twice, or how to leverage the main KPIs in e-commerce from Wanderlei, a digital expert, who was a partner in a Brazilian start-up. And from the whole team, people who were born and have studied in several different countries (such as Angola, Japan, UK and USA), I have learned how being surrounded by so many amazing people makes us stronger.
As our senior partner João Bueno said during our team event: "one of the best things about the firm is how we are all unique here". McKinsey colleagues come from very diverse backgrounds but the common thread is that everyone is passionate about going above and beyond to support each other. When we connect and sum our stories and our desires to change the world, this leads us to distinctive impact, because we become stronger in our diversity.
I cannot wait for more adventures with these amazing people and to share more with you about the community!
Until next time,
Ana Carolina