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Rajat Gupta ran McKinsey as managing director from 1994 to 2003, and later sat on Goldman Sachs's board. Gupta was convicted in 2012. Another senior McKinsey partner, Anil Kumar, was also caught in the Galleon case, which showed that the Firm's discretion-based culture had not survived its growth and enrichment.
Marvin Bower modeled consulting on law firms. He replaced commercial vocabulary with professional vocabulary, so McKinsey was 'the Firm' rather than a company, it did 'engagements' rather than jobs, it served 'clients' rather than customers, and it didn't advertise. By acting like a profession, with the client's interest placed ahead of revenue, it could charge professional fees and gain access to the CEO, even though it had no license, exam or regulator behind it.
McKinsey hires elite graduates and requires them to either win promotion within a set period or leave. This keeps the partnership selective and the associates driven. Those who leave are placed as executives inside client and prospective-client companies, where they become a network of loyal buyers. Attrition becomes a sales channel, and the firm's influence reaches well beyond its own payroll.
McDonald argues that much of McKinsey's value to clients is cover rather than insight. An outside, prestigious stamp lets executives justify decisions they already wanted to make, such as layoffs, restructurings and cost cuts, while shifting blame away from themselves. Because the Firm takes no accountability for outcomes, including at clients like Enron, its reputation grows through association with power whether or not its advice worked.