Consulting & Conscience. What McKinsey and the Opioid Crisis Demands We Ask Ourselves.

McKinsey & Company, long considered the crown jewel of global consulting, has quietly laid off more than 10 percent of its global workforce over the past 18 months. It is restructuring. It is shrinking. And there are real conversations happening behind closed doors about whether McKinsey as we know it will even exist in three years. Some are saying it's all about AI taking over their space. I'm not so sure.

It is astonishing either way.

McKinsey was the firm that helped shape corporate America. The place where presidents turned for strategy. Where Fortune 100 companies handed over their toughest questions and trusted the answers without flinching. This was the name that came with weight, discretion, and something close to reverence.

And if that name can fall apart, what does that mean for the rest of us? What does it mean for the history of corporate America and our belief in its place in the position the United States has held for the past hundred years in the world corporate order? Smokes and mirrors? Maybe.

When McKinsey’s opioid documents were made public, I read them obsessively. The slides. The emails. The language. Cold and transactional. The consultants who helped Purdue Pharma push OxyContin harder into the market didn’t speak in terms of human suffering. They spoke in percentages and projected gains. One line in particular stopped me.

“It’s pretty clear we’re going to be doing this for a long time and that it’s going to be a growing business.”

A growing business.

They weren’t talking about helping people manage pain. They were talking about pushing pills. Pills that were killing people.

And someone wrote that line. Someone hit send. Someone built the deck. Someone presented it. Someone nodded when the client smiled.

I worked for McKinsey.

Not full-time. I was what I think they call a domain expert. My domain was the event industry, which I knew intimately. I had spent a decade in it, at the time it was evolving from a mom and pop, local industry into a multibillion-dollar sector. I had purchased a party rental company in the Hamptons with a friend, which was eventually absorbed into Classic Party Rentals, the largest firm of its kind in the country. As part of that deal, I went to Los Angeles and ran national marketing and sales for four years. I knew the terrain.

McKinsey brought me in on Zoom calls, for clients who they were advising in that sector. No camera for me to see them, although they could see me, or I assumed they could. No introductions. Just voices. They would ask me to walk them through what I saw was happening in the industry. Who the smart players were. What I would do next if I were advising a company. Where I saw things going.

But I never knew who I was advising. They never told me. I was no longer working for Classic Party Rentals. Mostly, I had left the field, which made me feel even more like a detached expert floating above the board. But still. Was it a hedge fund? A private equity firm? A company looking to acquire or undercut another? I didn’t know. I was paid to provide insight, not context.

At first, I thought it was fine. McKinsey had called me. Wow. I'm pretty cool, right? They knew what they were doing. I was there to inform, not decide. But the longer I sat on those calls, the more uncomfortable I became. There was something transactional about the whole setup that started to feel wrong. I wasn’t sure I wanted to be helping the people on the other end of the call.

And still I second-guessed myself. It was McKinsey. The McKinsey. Maybe I was overthinking it.

But eventually I stopped taking the calls. I didn’t like advising behind a curtain. I didn’t like contributing to outcomes I couldn’t see.

Which is why the opioid revelations became more interesting to me.

McKinsey didn’t just advise Purdue. They shaped the strategy. They came up with ways to target high-volume opioid prescribers and motivate sales reps to push harder, even as overdose deaths spiked. They coached Purdue on how to influence pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens. They even suggested the company offer rebates for every overdose traced back to OxyContin.

And while they were doing all that, they were also consulting for the FDA.

It is a case study in moral collapse.

McKinsey eventually paid $650 million dollars in settlements and restitution related to their role in the opioid crisis. They offered a carefully worded apology and pledged not to work with opioid manufacturers again. But they never really reckoned with what they had done. And neither did the people inside.

And that is what troubles me most.

Because we talk about institutions as if they are fixed entities. McKinsey. Tesla. Amazon. The FDA. But they are not machines. They are groups of people. People who sit in rooms and make decisions. People who choose whether to speak up or stay quiet. People who tell themselves they’re just doing their job.

That is the most dangerous lie in the world.

The machine only runs because individuals power it. One decision at a time. One slide deck at a time. One quiet compromise at a time.

All across the country, people are resigning. From law firms. From corporations. From government jobs. Some are doing it out of conscience. Some are doing it because they feel complicit. But I worry. I worry that many of the good ones who leave are being replaced by people who don’t mind doing what’s being asked. People who don’t ask whether it’s legal or ethical. People who are just happy to be in the room.

The corruption we are watching unfold in both government and business is not being committed by logos or letterhead. It is being carried out by people. People who know better. People who hide behind brand names.

And McKinsey had a brand. It had the kind of reputation that made people question their own instincts. Just like Tesla. Just like Amazon. You ask yourself, “Would they really do something that unethical? Surely not.” And then you doubt your gut.

Maybe these companies were always smoke and mirrors. Or maybe the people have changed. Maybe we are no longer led by the John McCains of the world, who were flawed but guided by an internal code that didn’t bend easily.

The world is changing. Fast.

And if a firm like McKinsey can fall from grace, then none of us should be handing out trust based on a logo or a name or a track record. Not anymore.

We have to look more carefully. We have to make sure that the people we are working with, investing in, hiring, promoting, believing—are people whose moral compass matches our own.

Because it’s not just strategy.

It’s not just consulting.

You can't hide behind your brand or anyone else's. It's your name on that email. My name on the door. And, you should never advise anyone if you have no idea who is asking the questions.

— Christine Merser, Managing Partner, Blue 2 Media 

Christine Merser has been a leading marketing strategist for over thirty years, working with companies, politicians, and individuals to achieve groundbreaking success. Her innovative strategies and forward-thinking approaches have inspired others to redefine how they reach their marketing goals. Known for her curiosity, creativity, and ability to adapt to ever-changing landscapes, Christine continues to shape the future of marketing with fresh perspectives and actionable insights.