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Nimal Manuel

Senior PartnerKuala Lumpur

Serves telecommunications and public sector clients on strategy, marketing and sales, and digital transformation

Nimal is a senior partner in McKinsey & Company’s Malaysia office, for which he was formerly the local managing partner. With almost 20 years of consulting experience, he has worked extensively on building McKinsey’s Technology, Media & Telecommunications Practice, serving clients on strategy, data, and analytics-driven sales and marketing, and digital business building.

From a public-sector perspective, Nimal also has extensive experience in infrastructure and innovation issues. He joined McKinsey in 2001 in New York, and moved to Southeast Asia in 2006, developing deep insights across emerging and developed markets. Nimal’s recent focus involves the firm’s analytics and digital work in Southeast Asia, particularly in an emerging-market context.

Examples of Nimal’s recent projects include the following:

  • developing marketing strategies and transformation programs for telecommunications operators in Southeast Asia, with a focus on customer life-cycle management, pricing, and acquisition
  • rolling out distributor networks and implementing distribution-management systems to optimize third-party channel structure and performance, including micromarket programs and frontline-sales stimulation
  • driving infrastructure feasibility studies across a range of infrastructure categories in emerging markets
  • supporting the development of tangible wealth-creation opportunities anchored in innovation themes in emerging markets
  • driving operational improvements for semiconductor foundries in Asia and Europe, assessing all wafer-fabrication operations, including process complexity, yield management, efficiencies, and factor costs
  • developing mobile-Internet, mobile-commerce, and mobile-advertising platforms and strategies

Published work

A practical guide to new-business building for incumbents,” McKinsey & Company, June 2023

Capturing growth in Asia’s emerging EV ecosystem,” McKinsey & Company, June 2022

Five areas of growth for digital marketing in ASEAN,” McKinsey & Company, July 2021

Automation and adaptability: How Malaysia can navigate the future of work,” McKinsey & Company, February 2020

Four-point strategy could spur foreign-direct-investment growth in Malaysia,” McKinsey & Company, October 2019

How advanced analytics can drive productivity,” McKinsey & Company, August 2016

Ten ideas to maximise the socioeconomic impact of ICT in Indonesia,” (PDF–1 MB), McKinsey & Company, March 2015

Want big data sales programs to work? Get emotional,” McKinsey & Company, September 2014

Riding Asia’s digital tiger,” McKinsey Quarterly, September 2010

Past experience

Harris (Intersil) Semiconductor
Senior product engineer

Education

University of Pennsylvania
MBA, finance and strategic management

University of Manitoba
BSc, electrical and electronics engineering