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Anil Kumar’s cheap betrayal of McKinsey’s soul
     

January 8, 2010 3:50am



     On the front of the McKinsey & Co website is a link to a McKinsey
     Quarterly article titled Motivating People: Getting Beyond Money.
     
     It is a good topic, for the biggest question about the involvement
     of Anil Kumar, a McKinsey director, in an insider trading ring
     allegedly headed by Raj Rajaratnam of the Galleon hedge fund, is
     why he put his own reputation - and that of the firm - at risk for
     $2.6m.
     
     Mr Kumar has agreed to forfeit this money, which is said to have
     been paid to him in return for providing inside information on
     companies he gleaned through his work at McKinsey, and apologised
     in a New York court for the “shame and embarassment” he caused
     his colleagues.
     
     It is a shocking incident for McKinsey, like other blue chip
     advisory firms such as Goldman Sachs, depends on being trusted
     with its corporate clients with confidential information.
     
     So far, McKinsey appears to have escaped lightly enough from the
     affair, although that would change if any other cases of its
     directors leaking information came to light.
     
     But why on earth did one of McKinsey’s most senior employees
     break the rules so egregiously simply for material gain? Are
     McKinsey partners not paid enough as it is?
     
     Perhaps not, is the answer. The annual distribution per partner at
     McKinsey has fallen from its peak as a result of the financial
     crisis and, although we do not know the figure since McKinsey is a
     private firm, is much less than the annual bonus of a senior
     investment banker.
     
     The case of Mr Kumar shows that at least one McKinsey partner
     could be bribed for a fraction of what Wall Street’s elite earns.
     
     What would Marvin Bower, the partner who built the modern McKinsey
     - and who passed on his stock to his partners at book value on his
     retirement rather than put it into debt - have thought?
     
     Bower, dubbed “the soul of McKinsey”, would not have been
     impressed, it is safe to say. Rajat Gupta, a former McKinsey
     managing director, says of Bower:
     
     “Convinced that behaviour and conduct are every bit as important
     as skills and expertise, Marvin sought to build the firm into an
     enduring, values-based institution.”
     
     Among the five principles laid out on its website is:
     
     “Keep our client information confidential. We don’t reveal
     sensitive information. We don’t promote our own good work. We
     focus on making our clients successful.”
     
     No wonder Mr Kumar was so emotional in a New York court about what
     he did.
     
     January 8, 2010 3:50am in Management | Comment



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※ 來源: DISP BBS (http://disp.twbbs.org)
※ 作者: ott  來自: 118.166.12.76  時間: 2010-01-08 13:43:38