The complete, untold story of McKinsey & Co.'s founding father This is the authoritative and insightful account of Marvin Bower, who helped found McKinsey & Co. in 1939 and served as managing director of the firm from 1950 to 1967, and of how Bower, an attorney, took a concept known as industrial engineering and transformed it into what we now know as management consulting. As Dick Cavanagh, now CEO of the Conference Board, said, Bower "didn't just preach values, he practiced them. . . . He was a teacher as well as a leader." Elizabeth Haas Edersheim (Pelham Manor, NY) founded New York Consulting Partners, Inc., and was the managing director for 13 years until the firm was bought. She is now a strategic advisor to a number of companies. Edersheim spent nearly a year working with Marvin Bower on this book, and the manuscript was completed shortly before his death.

ELIZABETH HAAS EDERSHEIM worked for more than a year with Bower, completing the manuscript shortly before his death. Edersheim holds a PhD from MIT and worked at McKinsey from 1979 to 1988. She was the first woman partner in the Cleveland office and was a global leader of the firm’s operations and manufacturing practices. After leaving McKinsey, Dr. Haas Edersheim founded New York Consulting Partners, Inc., and was the managing director for thirteen years until the firm was sold. She is now a strategic advisor to a number of companies, currently working with three Fortune 500 companies. She has written numerous articles for publications including the the New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, and the Wall Street Journal.