Black Executive Masterclass: McKinsey style

Having been invited to attend the first Black Executive Masterclass by the world renowned McKinsey & Company, was an honour in itself, not least because the class they have brought together was of the very highest order, including; Arlene Issacs-Lowe Managing Director of Moody’s investor service, Trevor James - tax lawyer and partner of Morrison and Foerster’s, and Adrian Joseph, who until recently was one of the most senior executives at Google.

But there were more brilliant moments to come. On our first day of training I recognised the young executive who was about to lead the morning session. “Where do I know you from? “ I enquired. The young man looked at me, and said “Simon, you don’t remember me do you”, “I do,” I sheepishly replied, “I just don’t know from where’.

Then he explained: We had chosen him - Aleck Matambo - to be a REACH role model nearly 15 years ago. Back then he worked for another consultancy firm Ernest Young, and had shown such a commitment even as a very young man, to give to his community, and there 15 years later, he was doing it again this time so a cohort of Black senior professionals could be stronger, more dynamic, and above all much more connected.

When Aleck spoke to this very senior group of individuals, I was the proudest man in the room.

I’d heard about McKinsey co before- you know, the big corporate machine that only cared about the ‘bottom dollar’, and yet here we had a unprecedented focus on senior people of African descent, from banking, the arts, politics and business to come together to improve our capabilities, facilitated by some very senior Mckinsey executives.

The two days were intense; First theories about how to better improve businesses and organisations. This for me at times was a bit of struggle, in particularly relating the business acumen to the Black voluntary sector. But if our McKinsey execs couldn’t help me, my peers certainly good, - many of whom sit on NGO’s and have to take tough decision to put the organisation into better shape.

The second day was a deeply soul searching day about us. Truth is when you’re trying to become the next big commercial thing, or radically change the world, then thinking about the self becomes a low priority. What was inspiring though was that everybody in the room understood this phenomenon that we were able to help each other to think about the self, and how we might grow as individuals. This was an enormously rewarding process: Light bulb moments occurred, burdens were shared and unloaded, friendships, hopefully long lasting, were forged.

I don’t know what the organisers Vivian Hunt - Managing partner of the UK Office,- and Tunde Olanrewaju- McKinsey Senior partner - felt about bringing this group of talent together, but we the participants felt it was perhaps a game changer, that this group along with subsequent groups could grow into something very special.

I guess they took the mantra of OBV’s friend and Patron Iqbal Wahhab who always says, ‘if you put good people together, then great things happen’.

Well watch this space.

Simon Woolley

Full list of participants:

Lawson Crawford - Director of Legal Affairs UCL Business PLC, Arlene Isaacs-Lowe- MD Moodys, Trevor James- Partener Morrison & Foerster, Adrian Josesph Director Google, Derron Lawford- Creative Director, Woodcut Media, Ndide Okezie -Executive Director, Teach First, Dr Ify Okocha- Medical Director, Oxlea NHS Trust, Adele Sewell- Co-founder, Generating Genius, Alan Smith -Global Head of Risk Strategy, HSBC, Naomi Willians Taylor- Executive, Metro Design Group, Janet Thomas, MD Infinity Capital Partners, Najoh Tita-Reid - Vice President UK Bayer Consumer Care.