After 30 years in consulting, Liz, a senior partner with McKinsey Digital, is most excited about how the firm enables her to solve complex business problems with technology at an unmatched pace.
“I’ve had a long career in consulting! After grad school, I joined a Big 4 accounting firm. I then moved on to another firm, where I quickly progressed to partner. During that time, my work focused on enterprise transformations, enabled by digital and technology. I've done a massive amount of work with enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems and packages, especially SAP and Oracle.
I have been a senior woman in tech for much of my career, so when McKinsey approached me about a role, I was surprised because I didn’t know the firm did work in the tech space and had such an incredibly innovative and robust digital platform. When I learned what the firm could offer me – in terms of growth, development and the chance to do meaningful work, it felt like the right fit. I joined McKinsey Digital in June of 2022 as a senior partner.
Starting my career in the U.S. and then moving to the U.K., it was important to be with a firm that serves clients in a global way. I also wanted to focus on the value part of transformation, not just implementation. I love that as part of McKinsey, I’m able to help set clients up for success and assist them in getting the most out of their investments.
My role at the firm
Today, digital is in everything. My role is to bring a strong business understanding together with technology that can make the work better, more efficient and facilitates a better customer, vendor or employee journey. In previous roles, I was focused on implementation. Now, my focus is on helping clients upfront and along the way to ensure they get value from the technology.
I have expertise in core platforms, and specifically, how clients can link the digital front-end together with the core technology. Our clients want to deliver more value or be integrated with new investments and innovations. We are helping to construct the whole picture to enable clients to get the most out of their technologies. That can also include deciding how to set up service centers, so you have high-performing global functions, establishing and leveraging outsourcing relationships, or even training internal staff to take over once they are no longer working with us.
What gets me excited about McKinsey
I'm just so impressed with what we can accomplish and the outcomes we can achieve in the time we do it.
For example, I worked with a client in the advanced industry sector that was in a highly difficult situation, facing a critical market challenge. In six weeks, we helped them understand the real challenge, what they needed to address, and what kind of leadership they needed to stand up for themselves to solve their challenges going forward. At McKinsey, we want to accelerate these transformations—not stick around for years—and so our approach is more intense and fast-moving, but we bring the clients along the journey and set them up to own the process going forward. We’re accelerating the knowledge transfer and ownership quickly.
Beyond that, the diversity of digital work we’re doing is incredible. Often in tech roles, you are put in a box. That’s not how it works at McKinsey. Here, you have significant opportunities to use your expertise and broaden your horizons. For people who like a challenge and want to solve real-world business problems with enabling technologies, there is no better place to work than McKinsey.
More about me
I moved from the U.S. to U.K. for my work in 2008 and have since made it my home. I have a son and a daughter, both graduating from university this year. In my free time, I do a lot of scuba diving and snow skiing. Overall, I do a lot of traveling, both for work and pleasure, and find adventure in many things I do. I feel lucky to have a career that matches my energy, interest in solving problems, and changes every day.