Based in London, Ben leads the United Kingdom Product Development and Design Practices. He is passionate about helping clients develop creative products. Before joining McKinsey he designed and built the world’s lowest cost deep-sea camera: allowing pictures of new species to be captured kilometres below the sea surface.
He has a wealth of experience helping clients improve their products and services: both to drive revenue growth and reduce material costs. He has served over thirty of the world’s leading companies on everything from jet engines to sports cars, from asthma inhalers to coffee machines. Ben brings deep expertise in developing global transformation programmes, covering leadership training, project management, and portfolio planning.
Recent experience includes:
- Helped a global pharmaceutical company align on its injection device strategy for the next decade. Resulted in a portfolio of modular devices, proven to meet patient needs, with the added benefit of reducing development costs by over $200 million and dramatically reducing risks of time-to-market.
- Led a three-year transformation at a global industrial equipment manufacturer. The programme reduced material costs by $100 million, reduced inventory by 15% and improved the connection with customers in the product development process.
- Co-leading a profit improvement programme for a luxury automotive company. Embedded a Design-to-Value approach, which achieved 4% cost reduction in its first year despite all the vehicles already being in production.
- Identified a $300 million savings opportunity for defence equipment procurement, using McKinsey’s proprietary Cleansheet Solution.
Ben founded the McKinsey Design-to-Value lab in London. He works closely with LUNAR and Veryday, two of the world’s leading Design Firms that recently joined McKinsey. He gives seminars on innovation and design-to-value at University College London.
Published work
“Made to measure: Getting design leadership metrics right,” McKinsey & Company, March 2021
“The Black Hole of Luxury Watch Repair,” The New York Times, April 2020
“Are you asking enough from your design leaders?,” McKinsey & Company, February 2020
“The luxury of time—Digitally enhanced experiences in an analog industry,” McKinsey & Company, April 2019
“How do you quantify the magic of design?,” McKinsey & Company, November 2018
“Good design is good for business, new study finds,” CNN, October 2018
“Ignore Design At Your Company’s Peril,” Forbes, October 2018
“Think Investing in Good Design Is a Waste? Think Again,” Metropolis, October 2018
“Consulting Firm McKinsey & Co. Takes On Design Strategy,” Wall Street Journal, October 2018
“This McKinsey study reveals what every business needs to know about design for 2019,” Fast Company, October 2018
“Good design is good for business, says McKinsey,” Dezeen, October 2018
“The business value of design,” McKinsey Quarterly, October 2018
“Designing a healthy future for medical devices,” McKinsey & Company, July 2018
“The changing face of medical-device design,” McKinsey & Company, February 2018
“More than a feeling: Ten design practices to deliver business value,” McKinsey & Company, December 2017
“Factory of the Future: exploiting advanced manufacturing technologies,” McKinsey & Company, October 2014
Videos
“The Business Value of Design,” Dezeen, October 2018
“McKinsey Design Index,” Vimeo, October 2018
Education
Institute of Engineering and Technology
FIET and C.Eng
Cambridge University
M.Eng