- The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
The result was no consensus. Sandstein 13:14, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
List of former employees of McKinsey & Company
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Fails WP:NLIST this is WP:LISTCRUFT and potentially excessively long as there are 27k employees worldwide Dom from Paris ( talk) 15:23, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Businesspeople-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris ( talk) 15:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Organizations-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris ( talk) 15:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of United States of America-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris ( talk) 15:26, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Delete We're not a company directory of everyone who has ever worked for a company. Nate • ( chatter)
- Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Lists-related deletion discussions. CAPTAIN RAJU (T) 17:35, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Delete per WP:NOTDIR. If we go ahead to delete this list article, the same should also apply to the category: Category:McKinsey & Company people. Ajf773 ( talk) 18:47, 25 October 2018 (UTC)
- Keep This isnt a company directory. That is absurd. That would be like saying the Notbale alumni page of Harvard University is a former student directory. I think you forget just how rare it is to be the CEO of fortune 500 company and how noteworthy it is that McKinsey has produced so many. In the view of many people, the single most interesting thing about McKinsey is the fact that it has produced by far the highest number of CEOs per capita of any firm. If you delete this page you should also delete the Notable former employees of Goldman Sachs and the category page for Boston Consulting Group. Sorry im new to this so I am sure i havnt got the right protocal but this is really absurd.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Johnstonphil ( talk • contribs) 04:07, 26 October 2018 (UTC) — Note to closing admin: Johnstonphil ( talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD.
- Delete Admittedly the suitability of such lists is a matter of opinion - editors can disagree in good faith about what is "encyclopedic" or not with some leeway in-between. But I agree with other editors that this list is not of encyclopedic value (per WP:SALAT and WP:NOT). People, even high-ranking businesspeople, change their employers all the time. The alleged correlation between "being a former McKinsey consultant" and "getting a nice position later" is unclear and exaggerated (and already briefly mentioned in the main article anyway). I'll also note, that one of the main sources for the list topic's alleged significance is not a "study", but a reader editor's pseudo-scientific news article in USA Today based on primary data with a simplified one-dimensional interpretation of the results. Such popular articles are fun to read, but don't automatically establish a relevant encyclopedic topic. GermanJoe ( talk) 11:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Comment I have no opinion about related categories yet. Categories serve a different purpose, follow different rules and should be discussed in a different venue (at WP:CfD) - AfD is the wrong forum for such suggestions. Let's keep the discussion focussed on this specific list. GermanJoe ( talk) 11:24, 26 October 2018 (UTC)
- Keep per
WP:LISTPURP and
WP:CLN as an index of notable people by connection to a notable company, and per
WP:SPLIT as an encyclopedic subsection of a parent article on the notable company too large to be contained therein. This is just a list of notable people who worked for a notable company, which is compliant with NOTDIR as a standard, consensus-supported method of indexing articles (see extensive contents of
Category:People by company). The nominator's rationale seems to rest entirely upon the incorrect assumption that this would (or should) eventually contain everyone whoever worked for the company, when it is actually standard practice to limit such lists only to those individuals with articles, just as we would with a list of people from a town, alumni of a school, etc.
The parent article, McKinsey & Company, at present contains no list of notable employees, instead only pointing to the list's corresponding category, so we would at most merge this list there rather than deleting it outright, and with 158 articles in Category:McKinsey & Company people there are undoubtedly enough to merit a standalone list as a split from the parent. Whether each particular individual's connection is substantive enough to merit inclusion in the list or the category is a matter for ordinary editing, and the list can also annotate just what the relationship is. postdlf ( talk) 16:00, 28 October 2018 (UTC)
- Delete. Fails WP:LISTN - former employees of McKinsey have not been discussed as a group, they're discussed as individuals. Szzuk ( talk) 16:43, 1 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep per the significant coverage in
reliable sources.
The subject passes Wikipedia:Notability#Stand-alone lists, which says, "One accepted reason why a list topic is considered notable is if it has been discussed as a group or set by independent reliable sources, per the above guidelines; notable list topics are appropriate for a stand-alone list." I will show below that "former employees of McKinsey & Company" has been treated as a "a group or set by independent reliable sources".
Sources- Stein, Wendy J. (2006) [1994]. "McKinsey & Company, Inc.". In Kepos, Paula; Derdak, Thomas (eds.).
International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 9. Chicago:
St. James Press. p. 344.
ISBN
978-1-55862-324-8. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
More citation information from Google Books.
The book notes:
Although top graduates from the top business schools may not have considered consulting the answer to their dreams, few candidates for jobs at McKinsey ever turned down a job there. For decades it has been an effective stepping stone to management positions in the country's largest corporations. Squads of former McKinsey consultants hold top positions at PepsiCo and American Express. Former McKinsey consultants included Michael L. Ainslie, CEO and president of Sotheby's Holdings, Paul W. Chellgren, president and chief operating officer of Ashland Oil, William B. Ellis, chairman and CEO of Northeast Utilities, Louis V. Gerstner, Jr., chairman and CEO of IBM, Harvey Golub, chairman and CEO of American Express, Michael H. Jordan, chairman and CEO of Westinghouse Electric Corp., C. Robert Kidder, chairman and CEO of Duracell International, Jim P. Manzi, chairman and CEO of Lotus Development, and Robert D. Haas, chairman and CEO of Levi Strauss. Other McKinsey alumni held top positions at General Electric, PepsiCo, Merrill Lynch, and Raychem. The ranks of McKinsey alumni have formed a powerful network of top executives around the world. They call on other McKinsey alumni when they are hiring or when they need information, and they call on McKinsey when they need the services of a consulting firm.
-
McDonald, Duff (2013).
The Firm. London:
Oneworld Publications.
ISBN
978-1-78074-392-9. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The book notes:
A big part of McKinsey’s influence in the financial sector was due to its alumni network. In 1996 the firm had well-placed alumni in the management suites of SBC Warburg (George Feiger), Lehman Brothers (John Cecil), HSBC Capital (Steven Green), Swiss Re (Lukas Muhlemann), UBS (Peter Wuffli), Morgan Stanley Dean Witter (Phil Purcell), and Goldman Sachs (Larry Linden).15 Hamid Biglari left McKinsey in 2001 to join Citicorp. Jay Mandelbaum, until 2012 one of Jamie Dimon’s closest advisers at JPMorgan Chase, is an alumnus. Not all of them have had successful runs—Purcell’s Morgan Stanley tenure ended in his being deposed in a coup, Muhlemann’s post-McKinsey career was a decidedly mixed bag. But that didn’t stop boards of directors from going back to the McKinsey talent well again and again.
The firm infiltrated private equity as well. Don Gogel left McKinsey to become CEO of private equity powerhouse Clayton Dubilier. Chuck Ames, also formerly of McKinsey, worked alongside him. Ex-McKinseyite Sir Ronald Cohen was an early player at Apax Partners, one of England’s largest private equity shops.
...
McKinsey wasn’t just in finance, though; it was everywhere. By the late 1990s the CEOs of America West Airlines, American Express, Delta, Dun & Bradstreet, IBM, Levi Strauss, Morgan Stanley, Polaroid, and USG were former McKinseyites.16 In 1999 Fortune ran a story titled “CEO Super Bowl.” The story suggested that just as the University of North Carolina “manufactures” basketball stars, and the University of Michigan “cranks out” football stars, so too was there a CEO factory in the country—McKinsey. The network is without a doubt the most powerful the world has ever seen. “You don’t realize it until you’re gone,” IBM chief Lou Gerstner later told another McKinsey partner.
- Hayes, Thomas C. (1979-08-19).
"McKinsey & Co., Problem Solvers".
The New York Times. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The article notes:
The following are some of McKinsey's alumni:
James C. Abegglen, vice president, the Boston Consulting Group.
B. Charles Ames, president and chief executive officer, Reliance Electric Company.
Charles J. Aschauer Jr., executive vice president, Abbott Laboratories.
Kenneth S. Axelson, senior vice president, J.C. Penney & Company.
Jay Berry, president and chief executive officer, Airwick Industries.
Arthur E. Biggs, executive vice president, the Mobil Chemical Company.
J.J. Cardwell, president, Consolidated Foods Corporation.
Hal N. Carr, chairman of the board, Republic Airlines.
Robert R. Champion, vice president, Itel Corporation.
Ned P. Dewitt 2d, president, Six Flags Inc.
[The article lists 21 other people.]
-
McDonald, Duff (2013-09-10).
"The CEO Factory: Ex-McKinsey Consultants Get Hired to Run the Biggest Companies".
The New York Observer. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The author of this article also wrote the book The Firm mentioned above.
The article notes:
Last week brought more news of high-level appointments. On Sept. 6, French satellite provider Eutelsat Communications appointed former McKinseyite Jean-Hubert Lenotte as the group’s director of strategy. On Sept. 3, Avon Products appointed long-time McKinsey consultant Brian Salsberg as SVP of global strategy. That was less than a month after it appointed one of McKinsey’s highest-profile female consultants, senior partner Nancy Killefer, to its board. And on Sept. 2, Serbian lawmakers appointed Lazar Krstic, a 29-year-old former McKinsey consultant, as finance minister.
They don’t only make news with their appointments, either. They make it with their actions. The man calling the shots on the Vodafone side of that $130 billion deal with Verizon a few weeks back? That would be CEO Vittorio Colao, also ex-McKinsey. While McKinsey is a hard place to hang onto a job—only one in six new hires stays with the firm more than five years—it does offer an incomparably bouncy springboard into plum corporate roles for those who leave of their own volition or otherwise.
...
It doesn’t only happen on the individual level. Consider Enron, which had McKinsey written all over it. Enron CEO-turned-convict Jeff Skilling was ex-McKinsey. Between May 2000 and December 2001, while he was driving Enron into the ground, Skilling had more than 20 meetings with two of his old buddies from McKinsey, partners Ron Hulme and Suzanne Nimocks. Then it all exploded in a violent crash. McKinsey competitor Arthur Andersen, Enron’s auditor, went out of business as a result, but despite the fact that McKinsey was pulling in more than $10 million a year from Enron at its peak, the firm wasn’t named as a civil or criminal defendant, nor were any of its consultants asked to testify at congressional hearings.
- Hill, Andrew (2011-11-25).
"Inside McKinsey".
Financial Times. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The article notes:
The McKinsey roll of honour is long. Lou Gerstner, chairman of Carlyle Group and former head of IBM, and James Gorman, boss of Morgan Stanley, are both alumni. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, worked at McKinsey. So did the CEOs of BHP Billiton, Amgen, Boeing and Vodafone. Britain’s foreign secretary William Hague, and its chief financial regulator Lord Turner, used to be McKinsey insiders. Italy’s new economic “superminister” Corrado Passera worked at the Firm.
The powerful alumni network is in part the fruit of McKinsey’s policy of “up or out” – perhaps the best example in global business of a mutually beneficial rolling redundancy programme. Every two or three years, McKinsey determines whether its consultants will make progress to the next level in the Firm. If not, it gently pushes them out. The internal talent pool is further distilled and the Firm extends its web of potential contacts and customers. As a result, McKinsey alumni are famously loyal. Even those who spoke on background for this article – and had left the partnership years earlier – occasionally slipped back into the first person plural when talking about the Firm.
-
Colvin, Geoffrey (1999-08-02).
"CEO Super Bowl Which make better managers? Elitists from McKinsey or bruisers from GE?".
Fortune. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The article notes:
Note that the result could have changed if we had chosen different CEOs, which we easily might have, especially for Team McKinsey. Candidates: William Foote (USG), Richard Goodmanson (America West Airlines), Volney Taylor (Dun & Bradstreet), and Gregory Summe (EG&G), among many others. We chose the CEOs we did because they run the best-known companies.
-
Kihn, Martin (2005).
House of Lies: How Management Consultants Steal Your Watch and Then Tell You the Time. New York:
Warner Business Books.
ISBN
978-0-446-56246-1. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The book notes:
The book says McKinsey alumni include: Chicago Board of Trade's chairman, Gillette's board chair, Levi's chairman, a Google co-leader, CNBC's co-leader Pamela Thomas-Graham, and the CEO of Martha Stewart's company.People do not understand how hardwired McKinsey is into the power grid of business, nor how annexed it is to the Harvard Business School. ...
No—by now they own, run, or manage the entire world.
- Rasiel, Ethan (1999).
The McKinsey Way. Blacklick, Ohio:
McGraw Hill Professional. pp. xi–xii.
doi:
10.1036/0071368833.
ISBN
0-07-136883-3. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The book notes:
Several senior McKinsey partners have risen to international prominence in their own right. Lowell Bryan advised the Senate Banking Committee during the savings and loan crisis. Kenichi Ohmae (who recently left the Firm) writes books on management and futurology that are best sellers in Japan. Herb Henzler advised former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl on business and economic matters. Even more visible are some of McKinsey’s “alumni,” who have gone on to senior positions around the world: Tom Peters, management guru and coauthor of In Search of Excellence; Harvey Golub, president of American Express; and Adair Turner, president of the Confederation of British Industries, to name but three.
- Huey, John; Davis, Joyce E.; Furth, Jane (1993-11-01).
"How McKinsey Does It: The world's most powerful consulting firm commands unrivaled respect -- and prices -- but is being buffeted by a host of new challenges. Here's the inside story".
Fortune. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The article notes:
But lately it has found itself in an unwelcome spotlight, mostly because of the celebrity of such firm alumni as Lou Gerstner, Harvey Golub, and Michael Jordan, former consultants who have assumed hot-seat CEO posts at IBM, American Express, and Westinghouse. TCI boss John Malone, the so-called King of Cable, is also a former McKinsey consultant. Throughout this recent flood of press attention, The Firm has said nothing.
- Dunham, Kemba J. (2013-03-07).
"Low-Key Aide Will Lead McKinsey's Consultants".
The Wall Street Journal. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
The article notes:
Mr. Davis is ascending to the top of an organization widely regarded as a training ground for CEOs. It counts among its alumni Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the former IBM chairman and chief executive; Morgan Stanley Chairman and CEO Philip Purcell and U.S. Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Roger W. Ferguson Jr.
- Stein, Wendy J. (2006) [1994]. "McKinsey & Company, Inc.". In Kepos, Paula; Derdak, Thomas (eds.).
International Directory of Company Histories, Volume 9. Chicago:
St. James Press. p. 344.
ISBN
978-1-55862-324-8. Archived from
the original on 2018-11-03. Retrieved 2018-11-03.
- WP:NOTDIR does not apply because this is list of notable former employees of McKinsey & Company and per postdlf is a "consensus-supported method of indexing articles" per WP:LISTPURP and WP:CLN.
- Keep per Cunard's findings that this would meet WP:LISTN. As long as the criteria is limited to notable former employees and clearly laid out (either on the page or in the title), there is no issues with indiscriminateness.---- Patar knight - chat/ contributions 03:52, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
Please add new comments below this notice. Thanks, Black Kite (talk) 15:03, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep This is closer to a "list of notable alumni" for a university than it is a company directory. Restricting to blue-linked individuals is enough to keep the page from becoming an indiscriminate heap. WP:NOTDIR inapplicable; passes WP:LISTN. XOR'easter ( talk) 16:04, 4 November 2018 (UTC)
- Delete Needs references to show that the subject of former McKinsey employees per se is actually notable, rather than individual former employees, or passing references in articles that important people used to work there. Can you imagine, say, a list of former teachers? Former Marines? I think people are being swayed by the above references, but examining each in turn none of them is actually about the subject of former McKinsey employees, instead they are about McKinsey.
FOARP (
talk) 12:36, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
- That seems, in the present context, fine: the general theme of the references is that one big part of McKinsey's significance in the world is its roster of "graduates". In order to document the company in a way that reflects the content of the sources, we need to talk about that, and a spin-off list of individuals who are wiki-notable for other reasons is a sensible way to do so.
XOR'easter (
talk) 15:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
- This aspect of the company is already covered in several sub-sections of "Organization" in McKinsey & Company, where both the praise and criticism for this alleged approach can be presented a lot better in sufficient detail and nuance. An additional simplifying employee list, especially with the mentioned sourcing and criteria problems, adds nothing new in that regard. GermanJoe ( talk) 17:13, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
- That seems, in the present context, fine: the general theme of the references is that one big part of McKinsey's significance in the world is its roster of "graduates". In order to document the company in a way that reflects the content of the sources, we need to talk about that, and a spin-off list of individuals who are wiki-notable for other reasons is a sensible way to do so.
XOR'easter (
talk) 15:28, 5 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep - This was a good nomination but Cunard's list of references is convincing that we can treat the article as something better than list cruft. Sdmarathe ( talk) 05:02, 6 November 2018 (UTC)
- Keep Ill add one more source from Forbes in 2016: Why McKinsey & Company's Alumni Network is crucial to its success. https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidburkus/2016/07/05/why-mckinsey-companys-alumni-network-is-crucial-to-its-success/#7120d6e71580 It also seems very similar to the List of former employees of Goldman Sachs which is a ligitimate page. Johnstonphil ( talk) 14:01, 6 November 2018 (EST) — Note to closing admin: Johnstonphil ( talk • contribs) is the creator of the page that is the subject of this XfD.
- The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.