Seelan is a leader in McKinsey’s Public Sector Practice. He advises government leaders in developing countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East on public-sector transformations. Among his areas of focus are transformations within state-owned enterprises, public-service delivery, economic development, government holding corporations, and sovereign-wealth funds. He has also worked extensively with clients in the financial-services sector.

Seelan joined McKinsey in 1993 and worked in Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States before moving to Kuala Lumpur, where he has been based since 2003.

Examples of his recent client work include the following:

• helping an Asian government work with the private sector to create a 5–10-year economic-development program for the nation
• advising a government agency in Asia as it designed a program to improve living standards and reduce the cost of living for the urban poor
• working with a middle-income nation to develop a program that would deliver on the government’s top social priorities: education, rural basic infrastructure, urban public transport, poverty, corruption, and crime
• helping a national oil company develop its top leaders and intensify performance management to achieve its global aspirations
• working with four major retail banks in the United States and the Asia–Pacific region to design and launch holistic performance-transformation efforts

During his postgraduate work, Seelan was awarded a Rupert Murdoch Fellowship.