The manager was elected as the new CEO by the 650 Senior Partners in March of this year.
(Photo: McKinsey)
new York Bob Sternfels has only been in office for four months – and the head of the leading strategy consultancy McKinsey is already dealing with an internal uprising among his employees. Just in time for the world climate meeting in Glasgow, a letter was sent to the partners in which more than 1,100 employees demand a change.
They criticize McKinsey for advising many of the biggest corporate carbon offenders around the world. “The climate crisis is the defining topic of our generation,” they write in it and demand that McKinsey disclose how much CO2 customers let into the atmosphere. “Our positive impact in other areas means nothing if we don’t act, if our clients change the world irrevocably.” Sternfels was elected as the new CEO by the 650 senior partners in March of this year. He had replaced Kevin Sneader, who the partners have not granted a second term.
And that was mainly due to the scandals of the past few years, which had damaged the public image – among other things in connection with the spread of addictive opioids. In early 2021, the US consultation concluded an out-of-court settlement for half a billion dollars with 40 US states and thousands of American communities and families.
They had sued McKinsey because of the company’s role in the American opioid scandal. The strategy consultancy had advised the pharmaceutical company Purdue, which marketed the addictive pain reliever Oxycontin. McKinsey had advised Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies, among other things, to use higher and thus more quickly addictive doses of pain relievers.
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In the USA, the pain reliever manufacturers had, against their better judgment, aggressively marketed the drugs using fake studies, among other things, and downplayed the potential for addiction. In the wake of the opioid epidemic in the United States, around 450,000 people have died from overdoses over the past two decades. McKinsey was previously involved in the 2017 corruption scandal involving then President Jacob Zuma and the Indian entrepreneurial family Gupta, who were friends with him.
McKinsey wants to “protect the planet”
Now Sternfels has to face the new, internal allegations that his services make himself jointly responsible for the climate crisis. McKinsey advises 43 of the 100 largest CO2 emitters, according to calculations by the “New York Times”. In most cases, the focus is not on reducing emissions, but on reducing costs and maximizing profits.
Publicly, McKinsey says it is committed to “protecting the planet” and that it has served its customers on environmental issues for more than a decade. On October 15th, the consultancy held a “Climate Action Day” and aims to reduce its carbon footprint to zero by 2030.
But as a service company, the emissions are anyway low compared to what the companies we advise emit. Sternfels admitted in a comment that he advised large polluters such as oil and industrial groups, but also made it clear that there is “no contradiction between working in these areas and our obligation to transition” into a time with lower emissions.
Companies need to reduce emissions, Sternfels clarified. But leaving the difficult industries does not help the cause. “Companies can’t go from brown to green without getting a little dirty. And if that means that we get some mud, then we can live with it, ”the McKinsey boss confidently clarifies.
Born in California, Sternfels was a long-time member of the company’s global management board before his appointment as CEO, where he was head of “Client Capabilities” and performed a role that is comparable to a “Chief Operating Officer” in industrial corporations. Sternfels has been with McKinsey since 1994 and is considered to be well connected. As early as 2018, he wanted to become global CEO, but had to admit defeat to the Scots Sneader in the finals.
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