What It's Like to Work at McKinsey

Melissa is a Senior Product & Delivery Specialist at McKinsey, and is based in Silicon Valley. She joined the firm two years ago after spending time at a boutique health care consultancy. Here, she talks about her experiences since joining McKinsey Healthcare Analytics, including her most challenging project to date.

I'm passionate about adventuring. I'm convinced I need to be in the mountains pretty much every weekend to relax and reenergize. I hike, backpack, camp, ski – you name it. Almost two years ago, after living in Colorado and learning healthcare as an associate at a boutique consulting firm, I moved to California and began a new professional adventure at McKinsey.

I joined McKinsey Healthcare Analytics to impact the healthcare system in a big way. There are many opportunities for improvement in this space and McKinsey is well positioned to drive change through the leading care providers, insurers, and pharmaceutical clients we serve. I love knowing I'm working on relevant problems and that my work matters.

One of the most challenging and fun projects I've done involved building a new tool called "Day 1 Diagnostic." At the beginning of every healthcare strategy engagement, our teams use this tool to understand the market(s) in which the client operates. We use it to assess provider dynamics, payor and physician landscapes, and other nuances that may affect the way we approach the project. This information is typically disjointed and inconsistent, which makes this type of analysis difficult. Our tool stitches these datasets together in the cloud, then analyzes them.

In the process of developing the tool, I partnered with my tech team members, who are experts in coding, database construction, data cleaning and manipulation. I also worked closely with other Solutions team members and generalist consultants, who all helped identify datasets and analyses that would be useful for clients. It's been exciting and fascinating to hear so many different perspectives and get to know so many different people from very different backgrounds.

The development of this tool is an ongoing collaboration; we continue to adjust and improve it every time it is used. I've personally experienced just how helpful it is on my own engagements. It has saved me time and helped me to deliver best-in-class insights to our clients.

I am grateful I've had an incredibly supportive network here at McKinsey to help me navigate this project and many others. My Healthcare Analytics & Delivery teammates have become my advisors and mentors on just about every topic. I also have periodic chats with the leaders of our group; they help me think through my development path, encouraging me to identify what energizes me. For example, after discussing my interest in learning more advanced analytical methods, my domain leader nominated me to attend an advanced analytics translator training developed for McKinsey by faculty at Carnegie Mellon. It was an amazing experience – and one I wouldn't have had without her guidance and sponsorship. 

This post was sponsored by McKinsey & Co. A version of it previously appeared on McKinsey.com. Learn more about McKinsey here.