McKinsey & Co is ramping up its assault on the data-driven digital transformation market with the double whammy of hiring its first chief technology and platform officer and signing a major new CRM deal with Salesforce.
Jacky Wright was most recently chief digital officer and corporate vice president for Microsoft US. Before that, she held senior tech and digital leadership roles at BP and General Electric and was also chief digital and information officer at HM Revenue & Customs.
In her new post, the Brit will lead McKinsey’s technology portfolio and strategy and aim to accelerate clients’ digital transformations by helping them embrace technology and implement new platforms.
Wright, who will join McKinsey as a senior partner later this year, will also lead McKinsey’s internal technology team, which serves our more than 40,000 staff across 66 countries.
McKinsey global managing partner Bob Sternfels said: “Jacky will strengthen how we use technology both to help clients scale new ideas and tackle challenges, and to transform the way our more than 40,000 people work together across our global firm.
“She joins a team of leaders who have been focused on accelerating sustainable and inclusive growth in our client work, and setting the standard for our profession in how we manage ourselves as a firm.”
Wright added: “McKinsey has earned its reputation as a strategic advisor and impact partner to clients. I look forward to partnering with my new colleagues to help the firm accelerate our internal rate of innovation, and support McKinsey’s clients in building and sustaining the capabilities to succeed in today’s economy.”
McKinsey might not be one of the so-called big four professional services networks of KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young but it appears determined to grab a major chunk of digital transformation projects.
Nearly half of McKinsey consultants are now digital practitioners, while it has acquired more than 20 companies over the past few years and established an ecosystem of alliances with technology firms.
With this in mind, McKinsey has also strengthened its relationship with Salesforce with the aim of uniting McKinsey’s strategic insight and transformation capabilities with Salesforce’s leading CRM platform.
McKinsey and Salesforce insist they have a strong history of collaboration and creating impact together, with this also being strengthened by McKinsey acquiring Salesforce Platinum Partner S4G Consulting in May this year.
Salesforce president and chief operating officer Brian Millham said: “Together, Salesforce and McKinsey have created a powerful new way to support our joint customers in their digital transformation journeys – from ideation to value realisation.”
McKinsey senior partner and global head of alliances and acquisitions Peter Dahlstrom added: “By bringing the best of McKinsey and Salesforce together, we can help clients seamlessly navigate their end-to-end customer-centered digital transformation journeys and capture more value from Salesforce’s CRM and other cloud platforms.”
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