In recent years, McKinsey & Company has become a household name -- but for all the wrong reasons. One of the "Big Three" consulting firms, its work for major corporations and governments has increasingly become a source of scandal and intrigue around the world.
In the United States, for example, McKinsey agreed to pay nearly US$600 million for its role in the deadly opioid epidemic, following allegations that it had advised Purdue Pharma on how to "turbocharge" sales of OxyContin. In Australia, the firm's work on the previous government's national net-zero strategy was criticised as a flagrant attempt to protect the country's fossil-fuel industry. And in Puerto Rico, a New York Times investigation found that McKinsey's investment subsidiary, MIO Partners, was positioned to profit from the very same debt that its consultants were helping to restructure.
