Four New McKinsey Senior Partners on How AI Is Rewriting the Rules of the Top Job

Inside the Path to Senior Partner at McKinsey

McKinsey & Company welcomed roughly 60 new senior partners and distinguished partners this year, a small fraction of its 2,500-strong global partnership. Four of them sat down with Business Insider in late June — Anna Mattsson, Holger Hürtgen, Alex Devereson, and Maria Albonico — to offer a rare, unguarded look at what it takes to reach the firm’s top tier and how artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the role.

Each received the news in a personal way: Mattsson late at night, Hürtgen via a friend who teased him first, and Devereson with a blunt “congratulations” while bundling his son to a swimming lesson. Albonico, a London-based financial-services specialist, got a “shower of love” from colleagues that lasted so long her husband feared something was wrong.

The group’s conversation revealed a deliberate career philosophy: all four said they got there by demonstrating they were already doing the senior partner job, not by gaming politics. Mattsson, passed over the previous year, stopped overthinking and went “all in” on her clients. Hürtgen, a 20-year veteran who joined as McKinsey’s first data scientist and AI engineer in Germany, ignored advice to conform and stuck to his deep tech expertise — a decision that led to his election as a “distinguished partner,” a new role recognizing specialized knowledge.

AI was the other central thread. Albonico noted that number-crunching is now automated by evening, freeing partners to orchestrate meetings, build trust, and identify human skill gaps. Hürtgen admitted he feels “uncomfortable every week” trying to keep up. Devereson said credibility in his pharma and biotech practice now demands a perspective on AI — something that wasn’t true a decade ago. The change, Albonico said, has triggered a “paradoxical” refocus on the human, even as AI does more of the analytical heavy lifting.

What the Promotions and AI Shift Mean for the Consulting Industry

McKinsey’s Talent Model Adapts to an AI‑Intensive Future

The promotions underscore a deliberate shift at McKinsey. Creating the “distinguished partner” track for Hürtgen signals that the firm is formally valuing deep technical expertise alongside the traditional relationship‑building path. That matters because AI is now so central to client work that a partner without a technology perspective loses credibility. The move to embed senior AI‑native leaders could help McKinsey defend its pricing and project scope as automation eats into the tasks junior consultants once sold.

At the same time, Albonico’s description of a partner’s day — freed from late‑night number reviews and increasingly spent on human coordination — points to a re‑skilling of the senior role. If technical analysis is commoditized, the premium shifts to judgment, facilitation, and trust. For a firm known as a “CEO factory,” training partners to be more human‑centered rather than purely analytical may reinforce its claim to develop business leaders.

The Persistent Gender Gap at the Top

The quartet’s celebration also highlighted an uncomfortable statistic: earlier in 2025, only 6 of the 56 senior partner promotions were women, according to Bloomberg. Mattsson, who thought she was only the second female senior partner in the Swiss office, said she was excited to celebrate with two other women promoted in her practice this June. The small number of women reaching the highest level indicates that while McKinsey has improved gender balance among its broader partner ranks — 66 of the 224 new partners elected in 2025 were women — the top tier remains starkly male. Addressing that gap is both a reputational risk and a talent imperative, particularly as AI transforms who is seen as a credible leader.

Competitive Pressure from the AI‑Consulting Race

McKinsey is not alone in its AI pivot. Rivals such as BCG and Bain are investing heavily in AI‑driven services and internal platforms. The fact that even a 20‑year AI expert like Hürtgen feels “behind the curve” suggests that the entire industry is racing to keep pace. Firms that fail to embed AI fluency at the senior‑partner level risk losing high‑stakes transformation mandates to more technically credible competitors. McKinsey’s election of a distinguished partner who openly defied the traditional mold is therefore a competitive signal: it is betting that deep specialization will matter more than generalist polish in the AI era.

Practical Lessons from McKinsey’s Newest Leaders

For current and aspiring consulting leaders, the four partners’ experiences offer specific, grounded advice:

• Act the role, don’t play politics. Mattsson’s promotion came after she abandoned overthinking internal dynamics and focused intensely on the client work she enjoyed. Her advice echoes what the others stressed: demonstrate that you are already operating at the senior‑partner level rather than trying to game the election process.
• Embrace the AI discomfort. Hürtgen’s deliberate decision to ignore advice to conform and instead deepen his AI expertise was vindicated by his distinguished‑partner appointment. Professionals in any knowledge industry should note his habit of annually reassessing whether his work still serves his life — a practice that kept him committed even on “really shit” days.
• Build the human skills AI cannot replicate. Albonico’s observation that technical review now often finishes by 6 p.m. means the value has shifted to orchestrating conversations, identifying skill gaps in teams, and building trust. For partners and managers, this means consciously developing facilitation and emotional intelligence rather than doubling down on pure analytical prowess.
• Clients should expect a different kind of McKinsey team. With senior partners spending more time on human orchestration and less on raw data review, clients may find engagements include fewer late‑night analyst scrums but more structured decision‑making sessions where the partner’s role is to connect people and perspectives. Insist on this human‑centered leadership as part of proposal discussions.
• Gender diversity is still a leadership metric that matters. For firms serving McKinsey or evaluating their own talent pipelines, the senior‑partner gender gap is a concrete data point. Companies committed to supplier diversity or leadership parity should monitor whether McKinsey’s senior representation improves in the next election cycle and push for transparency in team composition on their own projects.