McKinsey: Emma, can you tell us a bit about your background and the journey you’ve taken to get to where you are today?
Emma Parry: I’m from a little town called Oban-by-the-Sea. You may have heard of it if you’ve been to Scotland and taken a ferry to the islands, or because you drink the local whiskey, also called Oban. But it’s a small town in the middle of nowhere on the West Coast of Scotland, about a hundred miles north of Glascow. I went to Oban High School, which is the only school for about 50 miles around. So, everybody goes there, a very comprehensive state school. So, a perfectly ordinary background in which to grow up.
McKinsey: What would McKinsey miss by not having someone with your experience?
Emma Parry: It’s a difficult thing to think about what would be missed without me at the firm, because there are so many special people with exceptional experiences and interesting backgrounds. But I think one of the things that’s perhaps different about me is that I grew up with a pretty ordinary background, that frankly, is not uncommon for the vast majority of people living in the UK and beyond.
My first job was selling pastries in a bakery and mopping the floor at the end of the day. My second job was working on the checkouts at Tesco. I did engineering jobs where I sat in freezing cold portable cabins recoding the numbers on different instruments, commuting back and forth to work every day in the north of England.
I think those experiences enable me to bring that real life to some of our client situations. I think it helps me be—or I hope it helps me be—approachable to a bunch of our clients who are not sitting in offices in London, just pouring over spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations all the time.
McKinsey: What actions can organizations take to prioritize social mobility?
Emma Parry: There are some actions which are good for all seasons that every organization can be getting on with if this is a priority for them, which I hope it is. First, make it really clear that getting people from different socioeconomic groups is a priority. That means understanding how to attract those people. Where are they and what are they looking for? How do make your organisation seem accessible? But also making it very clear that this is a priority and speaking about that loudly and proudly.
The second is making sure that you tell the stories of the people from different backgrounds and show that they can be successful in your organization. Make their stories well known so the whole organization feels more welcoming for people from the outside, who might otherwise be looking in and thinking, “I’m not sure that’s for me.”
The final thing is, once people are in the organization, think about some of the things folks might struggle with or find unfamiliar. Buddy them up with successful people from similar backgrounds, so that they’ve got people to help them navigate settings that could be new and different.