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Jose Luis Blanco

Global Leader of Engineering, Construction and Building Materials practicePhiladelphia

Advises infrastructure and real-estate clients on selecting, planning, deploying, and delivering capital projects

Jose leads McKinsey’s engineering and construction (E&C) work in North America, with a focus on real estate and construction technology. He advises capital project leaders across the project lifecycle, including investors, public sector institutions with large capital programs, and E&C or real estate project owners across Asia, Europe, Latin America, and North America.

Jose has served global E&C firms with a specialization in operational excellence, mergers and acquisitions, turnarounds, and digital transformations. He brings deep expertise in optimizing performance and unlocking value through embedding digital capabilities and deploying and scaling up new technologies.

Jose spearheads McKinsey’s global E&C performance benchmark, which periodically reviews the financial and operating health of the world’s top E&C firms. As a leader of our digital work in capital projects and infrastructure, he also leads McKinsey’s construction technology landscape scan, which periodically maps emerging construction technology solutions against innovation and investment patterns.

Before joining McKinsey, Jose spent almost 10 years at ACS, Europe’s largest E&C conglomerate, where he led hundreds of engineers and workers in completing some of the company’s most complex projects. This included transforming a former bullring into a shopping mall in 2009 and constructing Agbar Tower, one of Barcelona’s skyline landmarks, in 2006.

Examples of his recent client work include the following:

  • leading an end-to-end review of the capital planning, design, construction, leasing, and facilities management of a large US federal agency, identifying capital needs, mapping key processes, and developing a road map to achieve significant cost reductions and improved customer experience
  • supporting multiple merger integrations for infrastructure firms, including a merger management effort for a top 10 global E&C firm, with focus on maximizing revenue and cost synergies
  • conducting multiple due diligence efforts in infrastructure, including market sizing, competitive analyses, and the evaluation of entry strategies or potential acquisitions, for E&C firms in North America across civil works, environmental, waste, and water
  • devising and implementing a digital strategy for a leading construction technology company
  • conducting a footprint rationalization for an infrastructure firm in order to optimize its network of offices based on performance and growth potential
  • assessing and implementing capital planning and execution excellence levers for a large US state

Published work

Ten private-markets considerations shaping 2024 so far,” McKinsey & Company, September 2024

Bridging private equity’s value creation gap,” McKinsey & Company, April 2024

Making modular construction fit,” McKinsey & Company, May 2023

From start-up to scale-up: Accelerating growth in construction technology,” McKinsey & Company, May 2023

Building products in the digital age: It’s hard to ‘get smart’,” McKinsey & Company, June 2022

Call for action: Seizing the decarbonization opportunity in construction,” McKinsey & Company, July 2021

Rise of the platform era: The next chapter in construction technology,” McKinsey & Company, October 2020

How construction can emerge stronger after coronavirus,” McKinsey & Company, May 2020

Fine-tuning the growth engine: M&A in engineering and construction,” McKinsey & Company, June 2019

Seizing opportunity in today’s construction technology ecosystem,” McKinsey & Company, September 2018

Artificial intelligence: Construction technology’s next frontier,” McKinsey & Company, April 2018

Improving infrastructure outcomes through better capital allocation,” McKinsey & Company, November 2017

The new age of engineering and construction technology,” McKinsey & Company, July 2017

Voices on Infrastructure: Rethinking engineering and construction,” McKinsey & Company, October 2016

Beating the low productivity trap: How to transform construction operations,” McKinsey & Company, July 2016

Education

Stanford University
MBA

Polytechnic University of Catalonia and Barcelona Tech
BSc and MSc, civil engineering