Associate - Africa Delivery Hub at McKinsey & Company

Who You'll Work With
You’ll work with our Africa Delivery Hub (ADH) in either our Johannesburg or Nairobi offices:

• The ADH is a quickly growing team within McKinsey addressing complex public, societal and government challenges. We develop and implement exciting social sector or government programs such as reforming primary schools in South Africa, implementing special economic zones in Kenya or transforming power infrastructure across African countries.

What You'll Do
You’ll work in teams of typically 3 - 5 consultants, playing an active role in all aspects of client engagement:

• This includes gathering and analyzing information, formulating and testing hypotheses, and developing and communicating recommendations. You’ll also have the opportunity to present results to client management and implement recommendations in collaboration with client team members.
• You’ll work on projects that are typically longer term, more tangible, and with greater focus on leadership and coaching of client teams.
• You will work exclusively with governments, donors, and senior leaders in civil service on transformational challenges in economic development by building capabilities, overseeing transformation, and delivering policy solutions.
• You will partake in client development and workshops for new and current clients and write proposals for new client engagements. You’ll also have the opportunity to participate in and lead internal knowledge building initiatives and contribute to industry conferences and workshops.
• African economies possess high potential for social and economic development but often lack the necessary skills to achieve their developmental potential.
• You will apply your knowledge of international development topics to advise clients, or provide expert backup and support to client teams.
• You will be expected to rapidly identify and prioritize actions for, and executing on, client strategy to deliver on critical targets.
• You will provide ongoing, targeted capability-building of teams and/or individuals in context-specific skills, performance management, problem-solving, and analytics to enable them to more effectively deliver results.
• You will be expected to analyze data to identify opportunities and drive performance. Associates co-create performance targets and milestones with clients.
• You will set up and manage project management systems to track performance, and you’ll also have the chance to strengthen your specific technical/sectorial expertise to offer specialist delivery support (e.g. agriculture sector delivery) to clients with targeted needs.

Qualifications

• Minimum 4 year Degree (or equivalent) and excellent academic record required
• Doctoral and advanced Degree candidates in public health, development, economics and related disciplines are encouraged to apply
• 4-6 years of experience in development-consulting style position or working in a public or social sector institution
• Backgrounds in electric power, health, agriculture and education are most desirable
• Experience working in Africa is a strong plus
• Demonstrate sound reasoning and critical thinking skills
• Proven record of leadership in a work setting and/or through extracurricular activities
• Ability to work collaboratively in a team environment
• Ability to work effectively with people at all levels in an organization
• Ability to communicate complex ideas effectively - both verbally and in writing - in English and the local office language(s)