Summary: McKinsey’s decision to separate its Board Chair and Global Managing Partner roles is more than a governance update—it reflects how the world’s largest consulting firms are evolving as they grow in scale, influence and AI responsibility. As consulting becomes increasingly embedded in critical industries, governance may become as important a competitive advantage as talent, strategy and technology.
The biggest change at McKinsey this week wasn’t about AI. It was about governance.
The firm’s decision to separate the roles of Global Managing Partner and Board Chair for the first time, while reducing its Shareholders Council from 30 members to 12, may appear to be an internal governance change. It follows several years of legal settlements and reputational challenges, and McKinsey has been clear that the objective is to strengthen oversight as the firm enters the AI era.
That explanation is correct, but it is also incomplete.
The more interesting story is that one of the world’s largest consulting firms is adapting its governance model to reflect what it has become. McKinsey today is a global organisation of approximately 40,000 people and 2,700 partners, operating across governments, defence, healthcare, energy, financial services and increasingly the deployment of enterprise AI. A governance model built for a much smaller partnership inevitably comes under pressure as the organisation grows in both size and influence.
I suspect this won’t be remembered simply as a McKinsey story. It may prove to be an early signal of where the consulting industry is heading.
Governance is becoming a competitive advantage
For decades, consulting firms differentiated themselves through four enduring strengths: exceptional talent, trusted client relationships, intellectual capital and global reach. Those remain fundamental, but a fifth differentiator is beginning to emerge.
Governance.
Historically, governance was largely invisible to clients. It existed behind the scenes to ensure partners acted in the firm’s best interests and that the partnership operated effectively. Clients rarely asked how a consulting firm governed itself because trust was assumed.
That assumption is changing.
Today, organisations are asking different questions before awarding major transformation programmes. How are AI tools governed? Who approves high-risk engagements? How are conflicts managed? What independent challenge exists when commercial priorities conflict with reputational risk? How is sensitive client data protected?
These are no longer compliance questions delegated to legal teams. They increasingly influence commercial decisions.
The consulting firms that can demonstrate robust governance alongside technical capability will have an advantage. In an environment where trust has become a strategic asset, governance becomes part of the product clients are buying.
Scale changes the institution
One comment on my recent LinkedIn post came from a former McKinsey partner who reflected on how the firm operated in the late 1990s.
“The partnership ethos was the risk management system.”
That observation captures something important.
Traditional partnerships rely heavily on peer accountability. Partners know one another, culture is transmitted directly, and reputation acts as an effective control mechanism. In relatively small organisations, those informal structures can be remarkably resilient.
They become harder to sustain at global scale.
McKinsey is no longer simply a partnership in the traditional sense. It is a highly complex global institution operating across more than 130 cities. Decision-making involves thousands of senior professionals, increasingly complex client relationships and technologies that carry significant legal, ethical and reputational implications.
The partnership model has not failed.
It has evolved.
Independent governance should not be viewed as replacing partnership culture, but as reinforcing it. Institutional trust increasingly complements personal trust.
AI is accelerating the need for stronger oversight
Much has been written about how AI will change consulting delivery. There has been far less discussion about how it changes the way consulting firms themselves are governed.
AI introduces entirely new categories of organisational risk.
Consulting firms are now expected to oversee model quality, intellectual property, cybersecurity, regulatory compliance, client confidentiality, explainability and the responsible deployment of increasingly autonomous systems. Many are helping clients make decisions that directly affect critical business processes and, in some sectors, national infrastructure.
The challenge is not simply adopting AI faster than competitors.
It is demonstrating that it can be deployed responsibly.
That requires governance structures capable of balancing innovation with accountability. Firms that move quickly without sufficient oversight expose themselves to unnecessary risk. Firms that become overly cautious risk falling behind. The competitive advantage lies in finding the balance between the two.
This is why governance should increasingly be viewed as an enabler of innovation rather than a constraint upon it.
Consulting has become part of critical infrastructure
Perhaps the biggest shift over the past decade is not technological but societal.
Consulting firms no longer simply advise corporate strategy. They help governments develop industrial policy, support defence transformation programmes, modernise healthcare systems, redesign energy networks and implement enterprise AI across some of the world’s largest organisations.
Their influence extends well beyond boardroom presentations.
As their role expands, so too do expectations around accountability.
This reflects a broader trend seen across other professions. Global law firms, accounting firms and financial institutions have all strengthened governance as their societal importance has increased. Consulting appears to be following a similar trajectory.
Rather than representing a loss of entrepreneurial culture, stronger governance reflects greater institutional maturity. Organisations entrusted with increasingly consequential decisions require governance frameworks that match the scale of their responsibilities.
The board composition tells an interesting story
Beyond the governance reforms themselves, one aspect of McKinsey’s announcement deserves more attention.
Of the twelve elected members of the firm’s new Shareholders Council, Fabian Billing is the only representative from continental Europe. North America accounts for eight of the twelve elected seats, with the remaining members representing the Middle East, Africa and Asia-Pacific.
Board composition should never be overinterpreted. It is not the same as investment strategy, nor does it necessarily predict future growth priorities.
However, leadership appointments rarely happen in isolation.
They often provide useful signals about where influence sits within an organisation, which markets are producing senior leadership and how a firm increasingly views itself.
For a business that describes itself as one global partnership, the geographical composition of its highest governing body is worth observing. Whether this reflects client demand, leadership pipelines, election dynamics or broader strategic priorities remains open to interpretation, but it is an interesting lens through which to view the firm’s evolution.
This is unlikely to stop with McKinsey
It would be tempting to view these developments as unique to one firm responding to its own circumstances.
I suspect the opposite is true.
Every major consulting firm is becoming larger, more international and more technology-enabled. BCG, Bain, Roland Berger, Oliver Wyman, Kearney, Arthur D. Little and the Big Four are all investing heavily in AI while expanding into increasingly complex transformation programmes. Each faces similar questions around governance, institutional trust, risk management and organisational oversight.
The specific structures may differ, but the pressures are remarkably consistent.
As consulting firms continue to scale, governance is likely to move closer to the centre of strategic decision-making. Future leadership teams may spend as much time discussing institutional resilience, AI oversight and reputational risk as they do growth targets or market expansion.
That would represent a significant shift in how consulting firms define leadership itself.
Looking beyond AI
The consulting industry has spent the past three years talking about AI, and understandably so. It is transforming delivery models, changing team structures and reshaping how value is created for clients.
Yet the quieter story may prove just as significant.
As firms become larger and more influential, they are beginning to redesign the institutions behind the work. Governance, oversight and accountability are becoming strategic capabilities in their own right, not simply administrative functions operating in the background.
McKinsey’s announcement may therefore be remembered less as a response to past controversies and more as recognition that the consulting partnership itself is evolving.
AI may change how consulting is delivered.
Governance may determine which firms clients trust to deliver it.
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.
