The question that starts almost every conversation
Candidates ask it.
Firm leaders ask it.
“How’s the market?”
These days, the honest answer rarely sits in utilisation rates, deal flow, or budgets.
The conversation almost always lands somewhere else.
Geopolitics. Sanctions. Industrial policy. Defence spending. AI sovereignty. Energy security. Trade blocs.
That context shapes demand before spreadsheets ever come out.
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A diagnosis worth separating from the headline
I recently read Adrian Wooldridge’s Bloomberg piece on what McKinsey can learn from MAGA.
The title is deliberately provocative.
It’s also easy to dismiss.
That would be a mistake.
The diagnosis underneath it is sharp, and it reflects what many consulting leaders are already grappling with.
Wooldridge’s core point is uncomfortable but accurate.
Too much management thinking still assumes:
- Economics beats politics
-
Markets beat power
-
Global integration is the default setting
Those assumptions shaped the post-Cold War consulting model.
They no longer hold.
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What’s actually changed
Across strategy work, hiring plans, and client conversations, a different reality is now visible.
- Strategy bends to geopolitics before spreadsheets
-
Supply chains are political assets
-
Technology choices signal alignment
-
Talent is not mobile capital. It is contested
This isn’t theory.
It shows up in real decisions firms are making.
Where to invest.
What work to prioritise.
Which markets to grow or retreat from.
Which partners and directors are suddenly in demand.
Increasingly, firms are not competing against peers alone.
They are operating inside systems shaped by states, policy, and power.
As Mark Carney put it recently at Davos, many of the assumptions that shaped the post-Cold War system no longer hold.
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Consulting’s blind spot
Consulting likes to think it runs ahead of change.
In practice, many firms are still optimising for a low-friction operating model that has already expired.
Wooldridge captures this neatly when he argues that consultancies need to recognise that populism may shake up the business world just as profoundly as AI.
He goes further.
Firms need political war rooms that track day-to-day shifts in:
- Power
-
Policy
-
Alignment
That has direct implications for consulting.
Geopolitics is no longer a niche advisory topic.
It now sits inside:
- Strategy
-
Operations
-
Capital allocation
-
Technology choices
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What we’re seeing in the market
The large firms are not blind to this.
Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and McKinsey publish geopolitics content regularly.
Boards read it. CEOs ask for it.
The issue is not relevance. It’s integration.
Is geopolitical thinking shaping:
- How firms staff senior teams
-
How problems are framed
-
How advice is delivered under uncertainty
Or is it still bolted on at the edge?
Some movement is visible.
- Dedicated geopolitics or resilience practices
-
Growth in defence, industrial policy, and security-linked work
-
Tighter links between strategy, technology, and the state
But the shift remains incremental.
What’s required is structural.
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What this means for advisers
Advising CEOs today is no longer about helping them outperform rivals.
It’s about helping them operate inside overlapping systems:
Politics. Security. Industrial policy. AI. Energy. Trade.
That changes what good consulting looks like.
This rewards:
- Judgment over frameworks
-
Context over templates
-
An understanding of power, not just performance
This is also reshaping senior hiring.
Partners and directors who can navigate ambiguity, read political signals, and translate them into commercial decisions are becoming scarce.
Those who rely purely on legacy frameworks are finding them less portable.
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A final note on the framing
I’m conscious of being cautious about bringing my writing anywhere near the MAGA label.
That hesitation is real – for context, I was born and raised in New Zealand, a liberal, open democracy shaped by free trade, multilateralism, and a strong belief in rules-based cooperation.
But separating the provocation from the analysis matters.
Wooldridge’s observations are not ideological. They’re descriptive.
More importantly, they reflect what I hear weekly from consulting leaders and firms we work with across the UK, Germany, and Switzerland.
“How’s the market?” is no longer an economic question.
It’s a geopolitical one.
This post comments on:
Bloomberg: What McKinsey Can Learn From MAGA
Author: Adrian Wooldridge, | Date of publication: January 16, 2026
Ben Appleton is the founder of Strat-Bridge, a specialist executive search partner to the strategy consulting industry. He works with global consulting firms and senior leaders across the UK, Germany, Switzerland, and beyond — helping them build capability at the Partner and Director level.
