Kutcher runs McKinsey's North America region and has been with the firm for nearly three decades. In his 50s, he previously headed the technology, media and telecommunications practice, was chief financial officer from 2020 to 2024, and serves on the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Senior partners have credited him with helping tighten costs, including as part of the senior group behind 2023's Project Magnolia, which eliminated 1,400 roles.
The firm recently overhauled how it elects its top leader and plans to kick off voting next year. More than 700 senior partners will begin balloting in January. Any contender who clears a majority on the first vote is in.
If no one does, seven candidates advance to a second round. If there is still no majority, the slate narrows to three, leading to a final vote in February 2027. Serving on the global leadership team is widely viewed internally as a springboard to the top job, and additional contenders are expected from that bench.
In a statement, Shelley Stewart III - a senior partner who oversees McKinsey's insights, reputation and engagement unit - said: "We don't comment on our election, which is a confidential process among our senior partners." Sternfels is in his second three-year term. The next chief will start with a four-year term and may serve another two years, subject to a confirmation vote.
Leadership succession at major firms moves strategy and valuations. Market Briefs covers these transitions free every morning.
Inside the firm, Kutcher has become a key operator on AI. He set up "red teams" to challenge how consultants use AI in client-facing work, and said in a recent New York interview that he dedicates 30 minutes per week to each of those teams. Rather than forcing every colleague to adopt AI in lockstep - which he called "a fool's errand" - he is backing a smaller group to prove out the value.
"Not everyone may make the journey," he said. McKinsey's research underscores the challenge: only 6% of organizations say AI has had a "significant" impact on their business, unchanged from the prior year's survey. Even so, Kutcher told Bloomberg TV this month that the firm is adding headcount, calling AI "one of the great opportunities for us." He said McKinsey hired about 12% more consultants in North America last year than the year before, and expects this year's growth to be just below that pace.
Most of those hires are at the entry level, including undergraduates as well as people holding MBAs or other advanced degrees.
The next leader steps into a consulting market being reshaped by AI and geopolitics. The chief will be tasked with showing clients that AI can lift productivity while still justifying premium fees, at a time when clients are reevaluating exposure to sensitive markets. As US-China tensions sharpen over advanced chips, computing power and critical tech, some North America partners have raised doubts about McKinsey's footprint in markets such as China, and some US clients have grown uneasy about firms like McKinsey operating in Mainland China, particularly in technology and defense.
McKinsey has reduced headcount in cities such as Shanghai. Cost control remains a theme across the industry as McKinsey, EY, Accenture Plc and PwC have all cut jobs. Internally, last year McKinsey's leadership spoke with managers in functions that don't face clients about the need to trim roughly 10% of headcount across the business, a move that people familiar with the talks said could amount to a few thousand reductions staggered over 18 to 24 months.
For your money, the signal is simple enough: how a marquee adviser navigates AI, geopolitics and costs can influence where big companies spend on transformation, with ripple effects on the tech, tools and hiring you encounter every day.
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