Team Success
I grew up in the South of France, and never heard about consulting until I went to university. However, in 2012, I took a gap year from my studies and joined McKinsey as an intern in the Paris office. I was not yet 22, but on my first project, I found myself traveling every week to Luxembourg to the headquarters of a global industrial company. During my first days I was sure I would fail. The pace, the pressure, and the high stakes of the engagement were a lot to take. However, together with my teammates, we transformed our client and the project became a huge success. Almost a decade later the team is still in touch, with members scattered around the planet. I have seen this pattern happen again and again. Every time I start a McKinsey project, I feel like I’m standing at the bottom of a mountain I will never be able to climb. And every time, with the power of the team, we manage to reach the peak at an incredible speed.
The flexibility of the firm
McKinsey has been supportive in giving me all the flexibility and support I needed to grow beyond my job. After my internship, instead of joining the firm back in Paris after university, I decided to make Aliyah (ed. move to Israel and, as was required at the time, serve in the Israeli military). The Paris office was supportive and not only did they hold my job for three years, but even transferred it to Tel Aviv, where I started back in 2015. However, with my family and many of my friends still in France, I wanted to be able to see them. During my two years as an analyst, I found many opportunities to work in Europe and travel to my family and friends. I was also given the opportunity to take more time off to be able to visit them over longer periods.
After two years as an analyst, my passion for studies flared up again. The office supported me and offered to sponsor my MBA. A few months later I was at MIT-Sloan. Upon graduation, as I was supposed to join back the firm, I was offered a very exciting six-month opportunity in Western Africa. Once again, the office agreed, and let me come back afterwards.
This freedom to “make my own McKinsey,” of finding projects on all continents, growing at the pace I’ve set for myself, and taking time for studying and visiting my loved ones has made these last years an enriching journey of personal and professional growth.
Helping individuals
For me, this job has always come down to helping individuals. Once, while we were transforming a chemical plant, we created a planner position. He had to organize the tasks of the dozens of workers in the maintenance department. Our client appointed a young mechanic, who had joined the company ten years earlier as an apprentice at the age of 16. He had to lay down the tools and start working on a computer for the first time in his career. I can’t count the number of hours I sat with him, simply teaching him how to work with spreadsheets and slides. It may sound simple, but I do believe that my lasting impact in this job has materialized in helping each of these individuals along the years, whether they were mechanics in a plant or senior managers in large multinationals. And this is what fulfils me in my daily job at McKinsey.