I joined McKinsey after five years at an investment firm to explore data science and its applications across industries. A couple of years later, I marvel at how I chose the perfect place to start my journey.
Trying new things
As someone who enjoys tackling new problems, I was impressed by McKinsey’s array of analytics problems and applications, like powering investment recommendations with analytics and leveraging data to understand consumer purchasing patterns. Since joining, I have had ample opportunities to play different team roles, such as being the analytics team lead and acting as an asset management domain expert. Several times, I played these roles with teams serving first-time clients. What firm would place so much confidence in a newbie?
In my first two years, I’ve completed projects with seven clients in industries from private banking to grocery, telecommunications and even steel. McKinsey offers the best gateway to quickly upskill and learn about the analytics use cases across industries while honing technical expertise. And what’s cool about the QuantumBlack team is that we identify common aspects across projects and build in-house analytics assets for teams to leverage across the firm.
Sharing my experience and inspiring others
Apart from our client work, the firm prides itself on being committed to sharing its knowledge and experiences with the external community. I’ve had several opportunities to be a speaker at data science events, give guest lectures at universities, and mentor university students on real-life data science projects. McKinsey also hosts the Women in Tech forum, which focuses on supporting female professionals in technology. I always look forward to joining this event and meeting the wider community of female data scientists to share my learnings. McKinsey is a special place that offers many platforms for me to grow as a professional.
Being my best
In addition to great exposure, McKinsey taught me to find my own confidence. The culture encourages me to voice my opinions, be proactive about my development goals, and understand my value. I love that our projects kick off with a team learning session, where we share our working preferences and development goals. As someone new to the firm, I wanted to hone my management skills and lead an analytics workstream. I knew my manager would be supportive if I was open about this. After I voiced my goal, I found myself managing stakeholders and presenting the team findings to senior client members. I was also assigned to manage and coach two junior data scientists on the team. These are invaluable skills that McKinsey’s way of working has pushed me to develop over a short period of time so I can be my best self.
More about Joyce
Joyce holds a bachelor’s and master’s in applied mathematics and statistics from Johns Hopkins University. Prior to McKinsey, Joyce worked at investment firm GIC Private Limited as a quantitative analyst and researcher.
Outside of work, Joyce enjoys travelling, watching movies, and reading webtoons.