Walt Bogdanich Books
Walt Bogdanich is an investigative journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, known for his work at The New York Times.
Known for: When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
Books by Walt Bogdanich
When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
What happens when a company that almost no ordinary citizen can name helps shape the decisions that govern hospitals, drugmakers, prisons, banks, tech firms, and even national governments? In When McKinsey Comes to Town, investigative journalists Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe pull back the curtain on McKinsey & Company, the elite consulting firm whose advice has quietly influenced some of the most consequential choices in modern public and corporate life. The book is not merely a history of management consulting. It is an exposé of how prestige, secrecy, and analytical authority can combine to affect millions of lives while evading public scrutiny. Through deeply reported case studies, the authors trace McKinsey’s role in the opioid crisis, its work for authoritarian regimes, its influence inside government bureaucracies, and its involvement with companies facing major ethical failures. Bogdanich and Forsythe bring unusual authority to the subject: both are veteran New York Times investigative reporters with long records of uncovering hidden systems of power. The result is a sharp, timely examination of how expertise can be used not only to solve problems, but also to legitimize harmful decisions.
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How McKinsey Built Invisible Global Power
Power is often strongest when it is least visible. One of the book’s central insights is that McKinsey did not become influential by courting public attention; it became influential by positioning itself behind the scenes, advising the people who already held economic and political power. Founded in...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
Corporate Influence Beyond The Boardroom
A consultant’s slide deck can change more lives than a politician’s speech. The book demonstrates that McKinsey’s corporate work was not limited to harmless productivity improvements; it often helped define how major companies pursued growth, cost reduction, and market dominance. In industry after i...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
When Government Outsources Its Judgment
Democracy weakens when public decisions are made by private advisers. A major theme of the book is that McKinsey’s reach extended far beyond corporations into the machinery of government. Agencies and ministries turned to the firm for help on modernization, budgeting, operations, and strategic refor...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
The Opioid Crisis And Profit Logic
Some of the most damaging decisions in modern business were not made in ignorance, but with expert assistance. One of the book’s most disturbing sections examines McKinsey’s work for opioid manufacturers, especially Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin. The authors detail how the firm advised clients o...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
Serving Authoritarian Power Under Neutrality
Neutrality can become a moral fiction when expertise serves repression. Another striking argument in the book is that McKinsey’s global business model brought it into relationships with authoritarian regimes and state-linked institutions whose interests were difficult to separate from human rights a...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
Environmental Harm And Ethical Blind Spots
What organizations choose not to measure often reveals what they do not value. The book shows that McKinsey’s problem-solving approach, while data-heavy and intellectually polished, could contain major ethical blind spots, especially in areas like environmental damage and long-term social cost. Cons...
From When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World's Most Powerful Consulting Firm
About Walt Bogdanich
Walt Bogdanich is an investigative journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, known for his work at The New York Times.
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Walt Bogdanich is an investigative journalist and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner, known for his work at The New York Times.
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