Posted on 03/08/2003 1:24:16 PM PST by kattracks
NEW YORK (AP) -- Chelsea Clinton will start a six-figure consulting job after she receives a master's degree from Oxford University later this year, Newsweek magazine reports on its Web site.
The daughter of former President Clinton will work in the New York office of London-based McKinsey & Company, newsweek.com reported Friday.
Clinton, 23, accepted the position Friday after she reportedly turned down McKinsey's offer of $100,000 a year to work at its London headquarters, according to the Web site.
A spokesman for McKinsey did not immediately return a call for comment Saturday, nor did Bill Clinton's office.
Clinton, who is studying international relations at Oxford, will be one of 5,000 McKinsey consultants worldwide who research topics ranging from health care to corporate finance.
Source: Consulting Magazine, 01/00
Part One: McKinsey At Crossroads
By Jack Sweeney
Nowhere has the consulting profession more gracefully withstood the test of time than behind the walls of McKinsey & Co. But nowhere is time now in shorter supply. Consulting's 73-year-old blue-chip stalwart is facing the fight of its life, as an upstart clan of digital consultancies issues a challenge that cannot be ignored.
It's a balmy autumn morning in New York City, and Roger Nelson is entering the final 48 hours of his career as head of Ernst & Young LLP's $4 billion consulting arm -and yet, all E&Y's top consultant wants to talk about is McKinsey & Co.
Somewhere, buried in this morning's Financial Times, McKinsey's managing director Rajat Gupta has disclosed that the firm is now taking equity stakes in a number of its clients, and Nelson can't resist reading between the lines.
"This is a huge departure for them. This is against the very premise of what they often refer to as independent thought, and at McKinsey, independence has always meant no equity," explains Nelson, who seems to be savoring the news as if McKinsey's disclosure was in some way a fitting final chapter to his own consulting career.
SNIP
"We have a strong desire to participate in the new economy, and there were certain requirements to doing so, and we wanted to make sure we remain responsive to those requirements," says Gupta, who estimates the number of McKinsey's consulting-for-equity clients to now be about 100.
To bolster the firm's responsiveness, a year ago McKinsey established what it calls the office of the managing director -a group of about a half-dozen senior partners who today help Gupta champion issues surrounding both people development and knowledge building. More than providing additional shepherds to keep an eye on McKinsey's stray "cats," the new office is focused on speeding up the consultancy's decision-making. Only a handful of practices today report directly to the elite group; among them is the firm's e-business unit now headed by McKinsey partner John Hagel, author of the best selling e-business books Net Worth and Net Gain. Hagel says that the office has recently been working to enhance the firm's people development practices to better attract the talent it needs to compete in the New Economy.
Surely you're forgetting that Bill was the first black president of the USA.
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"Inside McKinsey" - Businessweek 7/8/2002
Enron, which was paying McKinsey as much as $10 million in annual fees
the rise of Ron Hulme, an affable, low-key senior partner and a leader of its energy practice, who managed the Enron account from McKinsey's Houston offices. Like many of the firm's consultants, Hulme penned essays extolling the virtues of Enron. As McKinsey's annual billings climbed higher and higher at Enron--at one recent point exceeding $10 million--Hulme commanded greater influence in the firm, helping to lead partner conferences and key initiatives. Some insiders even considered him a potential successor to Gupta, though that's now an unlikely prospect, given Enron's collapse. "Despite his young age, he had tremendously high standing and power that derived from the Enron relationship," says a former McKinseyite. Hulme declined to comment.
Hulme did not initiate McKinsey's Enron business. Like many of the deepest and most lucrative corporate relationships, it began with one consultant who instantly impressed a client with his brilliance and insights. Jeffrey Skilling, then McKinsey's partner in charge of the worldwide energy practice, began advising Enron in the late '80s, but the relationship was cemented when he joined Enron in 1990 with the mandate to create a new way of doing business. Skilling, who once said he felt as if he were "doing God's work" at McKinsey, had proposed that Enron create a portfolio of fixed-price purchase and supply contracts that would supposedly eliminate supply risks and minimize the price fluctuations of the spot market for trading natural gas.
After joining Enron, Skilling repeatedly turned to McKinsey teams for analytical help and advice. "They infiltrated Enron with Jeff, and he was just the tip of the iceberg," says a former McKinsey consultant who worked at Enron. "There were all sorts of McKinsey people who went in over the years. They were so happy they had Enron locked up."
Indeed, several other prominent McKinsey consultants migrated to Enron as employees, including partner Doug Woodham, who left the firm in 1994 for a four-year stint as vice-president at Enron Capital & Trade Resources, where he led a team that developed an electric power and natural gas hedge fund. As Enron work became more financially driven, McKinsey teams there increasingly drew on partners with expertise in trading, risk management, and investment banking. At any given time, McKinsey had as many as 20 consultants at the energy company, several stationed in Enron's offices.
McKinsey also helped Enron formulate its now-discredited broadband strategy, in which it built a high-speed fiber network to support the trading of communications capacity. Among other things, McKinsey, over about six months, helped to gauge the size and growth of the market. And, like Enron and many others, it didn't see the telecom meltdown coming. McKinsey also helped to set up the finance subsidiary that Enron later portrayed as its growth engine, and also assisted the firm with its commodity risk management operations.
A former Enron senior executive says McKinsey consultants wielded influence throughout the organization. "They were all over the place," he says. "They were sitting with us every step of the way. They thought, `This thing could be big, and we want credit for it."' The extent of its work there and its access to senior management exposed the firm to much of Enron's inner workings. Over the years, McKinsey partners Hulme and Suzanne Nimocks had numerous one-on-one discussions with Skilling, according to former Enron executives.
As far as bankrupt clients go, Enron is just the tip of the iceberg. But hey, most companies won't pay for expensive advice unless they're in a whole heap of trouble....and sometimes it's intractable. On the other hand, I know first hand that mck's advice is not always right. But they're right often enough to stay in business.
Weren't you the McK alum who said that Chelsea would only make about $65,000 with her qualifications (i.e. sans MBA, JD, PHD etc.)? Obviously some of the key leaders at McK are drinking the Clinton Kool-Aid because Chelsea has demonstrated neither the smarts nor the work ethic to warrant this type of position. McK bought access, pure and simple.
Wouldn't want their advice going forward, as their judgment is obviously tainted.
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