Inside the Strategy Room
We talk with McKinsey partners and corporate executives on the challenges they face creating lasting strategies in a fast-changing world. We also examine the different ways these executives approach these challenges and the new and innovative ways they think of creating a vision for their enterprises.
Episodes
Agentic AI is fundamentally changing how a transformation office (TO) can operate, freeing up the team to be not just faster but better. Chase Covington and Tomer Slaney join us to discuss how deploying agentic tools can generate sharper performance insights, maintain a single source of truth, and drive the right conversations at the right cadence—while allowing a more dedicated focus on the human elements of the change effor...
Today’s disruption has created a critical ‘Strategy Moment’ for organizations navigating a fundamentally changing basis of competitive advantage. Carolyn Dewar, Marcus Jacob and Laura LaBerge join us to debunk four strategy myths and unpack how long-held assumptions are being rewritten to shape foundational strategic choices for a future-focused reality. They also discuss where AI amplifies the challenge—and...
As we enter the fourth quarter, we look to where M&A stands and how dealmakers can finish strong. We also explore how AI is rewriting the traditional M&A playbook: success no longer comes from scale alone, but from building intelligent platforms and capabilities that compound over time to drive growth. Benjamin Houssard, Kameron Kordestani, Alex Liu, and Tobias Lundberg walk through how to leverage AI to turn a series of tr...
As AI models become increasingly sophisticated, organizations and their leaders need to maintain awareness of the opportunities and challenges each new model can present. Specifically, the newest Frontier Lab LLMs are able to chain together and exploit vulnerabilities in even the most sophisticated organizations. Charlie Lewis and Marie-Claude Nadeau join us to discuss the threats posed by these models and how organizations can sta...
Episode description
Executives have more data, more frameworks, and more advice than ever, and yet their confidence in their strategies keeps falling. Andy West, Tim Koller, and Whitney Zimmerman, authors of our forthcoming book Strategy and Value: The Four Foundations That Drive Long-Term Performance, join us to discuss how winning companies leverage the four foundations that drive long-term performance and value creation
Related ...
McKinsey research finds that companies executing transformations with rigor are much more likely to meet overall organizational transformation goals. Chris Hagedorn, Preeya Mody, and Michel Morenville join us to discuss what rigor really means in the context of transformation and how to embed it throughout the process, from setting the aspiration to mobilizing to delivering impact.
Related insights
Real estate is moving from stabilization to selective acceleration, with value creation becoming more targeted, operational, and execution-led. As capital concentrates in select sectors and strategies, leaders need sharper asset selection, disciplined capital structures, and stronger AI-enabled capabilities. Ben Dimson, Tripp Norton, and Aditya Sanghvi discuss how General Partners, Limited Partners, and real estate operators c...
Private equity is navigating one of its most challenging value creation environments in years, and winning firms are using M&A integration as a competitive weapon. Brian Dinneen and Matthew Maloney join us to discuss three high-impact integration strategies that leading sponsors are using to overcome these headwinds, based on their recent article.
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The risk function’s fundamental purpose has not changed in light of AI. What has changed is the nature and pace of risks amplified by AI, as well as the tools available to manage them. Anke Raufuss, Björn Nilsson, and Laura Webanck join us to discuss the role of the digital twin and how it is changing the future of risk management.
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As strategy rises to the top of executive agendas, many organizations are struggling to translate bold strategic choices into sustained performance. In this episode, the global coleaders of our Strategy and Corporate Finance Practice, Sébastien Lacroix and Andy West, along with Whitney Zimmerman, a distinguished expert in strategy, discuss why mobilization has become the critical differentiator between strategy success and failure,...
In this bonus episode, McKinsey CFO practice leaders Kevin Carmody, Matt Maloney, and Christian Grube share their insights from the 2026 CFO Forum in London.
Their conversation explores how the CFO role is evolving from financial steward to strategic value creator; why leading finance organizations are moving beyond incremental budgeting; how AI can provide the catalyst to fundamentally rewire finance operating models rather than s...
Private equity firms are under increasing pressure to create value in a tougher market, with longer hold times and evolving value creation theses. Leading funds are using re-underwriting as a repeatable discipline that supports better decisions across the hold period. Join AD Bhatia, Jason Phillips, Hassen Ahmed and Manuel Fernandez Angulo as they unpack the what, when and who of re-underwriting. They share how AI assistance, ...
The traditional annual budget process is broken. It is rigid, backward-looking, and not operationally fit to keep up with today's fast-moving markets. Top-performing companies are outpacing peers by budgeting differently. Matthew Maloney, Karen McLoughlin, and Michele Tam join us to discuss their recent article on how top-performing companies are transforming the budget from a control mechanism to a dynamic road map for driving gro...
Infrastructure is at a pivotal inflection point: its definition is expanding beyond traditional assets to digital and interconnected systems, demanding a fundamental mindset shift by governments, investors, and operators to plan, fund, and maintain integrated infrastructure that supports future growth and resilience. Alastair Green and Adrian Kwok discuss the latest findings from our 2026 Global Private Markets Report, take st...
Competitive advantage is becoming much more fluid as market positions shift faster across industries, with advantages eroding and differentiation narrowing. Despite this increased volatility, companies often fail to actively monitor shifts in their competitive edge. Join Matt Banholzer and Laura LaBerge as they discuss their latest research on the erosion of competitive advantage and share what companies can do to ma...
Long-term value creation is foundational to building strong companies and economies, yet many leaders struggle to ensure that well-conceived, well-executed strategies receive full recognition from investors. Senior Partner Ryan Davies and Associate Partner Jacob Marcus join us to discuss how to anticipate investor reactions, assess opportunities to outperform expectations, and embed an investor mindset into decision-makin...
In today’s tougher exit environment, private equity firms are facing longer holding periods, valuation gaps, and increased pressure to return capital. Kai Vollhardt and Jelena Bauer are joined by Christian Habrich and Frederyk Schroeder as they unpack their latest article on how to drive successful exits. They share strategies that top-performing firms use to improve exit outcomes and turn preparation into prem...
Discover how market leaders—Walmart, Builders FirstSource, Progressive, and JPMorgan Chase—achieved exceptional growth from 2019 to 2024, outperforming peers by an average of five percentage points in revenue and seven points in profitability. In this episode, Simon Jones, David Schiff , and Kate Siegel discuss their new article on the three critical characteristics that drive sustained profitable business gro...
Transformations often falter due to internal dynamics that divide organizations, such as misaligned incentives, siloed efforts, and risk aversion. CEOs are uniquely positioned to address these challenges by tackling the root causes of collective-action problems and uniting their organizations around bold aspirations. Join Meagan Hill, Mathew Lee, and Kurt Strovink as they explore the role of the CEO in driving enterprise-wide trans...
More than 55 percent of large spin-offs fail to deliver the expected value three years post-spin; this is true for both the parent and the new company. However, even in today’s complex macro environment, there is plenty of spin activity as companies look outside the portfolio in pursuit of more focused strategies, fit-for-purpose operating models, and optimized capital management.
Join us as Jamie Koenig and Anna Mattson...
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