Growth, Marketing & Sales Practice

Choosing to grow: The leader’s

blueprint
Driving sustainable, inclusive growth requires the right mindset, strategy, and
capabilities. Here are some steps that could help foster successful growth.

This article is a collaborative effort by Michael Birshan, Biljana Cvetanovski, Rebecca Doherty, Tjark Freundt, Andre
Gaeta, Greg Kelly, Erik Roth, Ishaan Seth, and Jill Zucker, representing views from McKinsey’s Growth, Marketing &
Sales and Strategy & Corporate Finance practices.

© Getty Images

July 2022
 Growth is something every CEO and business its ability to use stores as distribution centers and
leader aspires to deliver, but for many, it remains enable online-order pickups from their parking lots.²
elusive. About a quarter of companies don’t grow at
all, and between 2010 and 2019, only one in eight The leaders who choose growth and outperform
achieved more than 10 percent revenue growth their peers not only think, act, and speak differently;
annually.¹ Sustained, profitable growth is possible, they align around a shared mindset, strategy, and
however, and it comes down to “choice.” capabilities. In turn, they actively track leading and
lagging growth indicators to tie their aspirations to
Do you, as a leader, make an explicit choice to grow? clear and measurable key performance indicators
Or do you pay lip service to your growth ambitions (KPIs). They explore and invest in opportunities
and let your resolve falter if profit isn’t immediate? both within and outside their core business. Their
commitment to growth leads them to invest in an
When sustainable, inclusive, and profitable growth appropriate mix of enablers at the right time and
becomes a conscious, resolute choice, it shapes scale, and they stay resolutely faithful to their
decision making across every area of the business. growth vision in the face of unexpected challenges
Growth becomes the oxygen of an organization, in their business and operating context, even turning
feeding the culture, elevating ambitions, and disruption to their advantage.
inspiring a sense of purpose. Growth leaders
generate 80 percent more shareholder value than Drawing on McKinsey’s extensive research into
their peers over a ten-year period. Beyond creating growth and leadership as well as our experience
shareholder value, growth attracts talent, fosters in partnering with leaders in every sector on
innovation, and creates jobs. sustainable, profitable growth, this article explores
what happens when business leaders make and
With only one in ten S&P 500 companies reporting follow through on a purposeful choice to grow.³ The
growth above GDP for more than 30 years, leader’s blueprint for growth shows how subtle
sustained, profitable growth may seem difficult. But changes in thoughts and actions arising from
the choice to grow is paramount—and it is available choice can make the difference between sustained
to every leader, regardless of industry or economic standout growth and remaining with the pack.
climate. Indeed, many high-growth companies,
including Hewlett-Packard, Burger King, Hyatt When a business leader chooses growth, that choice
Hotels, Microsoft, and Airbnb, to name a few, were begins to shape behavior, mindset, risk appetite, and
founded during economic downturns. investment decisions, creating a growth orientation
across the organization. In fact, growth leaders
Incumbents have also achieved impressive growth across the C-suite are 70 percent more likely than
during downturns. US-based retailer Target peers to have growth as their top priority.⁴
managed to deliver growth during each of the last
two recessions. In 2000, Target doubled down Growth-oriented leaders also shape their thinking
on growth investments, adding new locations, and actions toward growth over both short- and
products, and partnerships that resulted in double- long-term horizons. They react decisively to
digit growth for sales and profits. In 2008, Target shorter-term disruptions that can be turned into
analyzed customer trends and expanded its food opportunities - what we term “timely jolts” - and
offerings to include more fresh meat and produce; build organizational resilience and agility to respond
the food category has since added billions to to change and leverage disruption. These leaders
annual revenue. In 2020, Target achieved record follow a timeless blueprint for growth that flows
growth during the COVID-19 pandemic by investing from mindset into growth pathways and execution
consistently in online services and accelerating (Exhibit 1).

1
Statistics in this section are based on McKinsey’s analysis of data from Corporate Performance Analytics by McKinsey and regulatory filings, S&P Global,
for the period 2010–19.
² Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, “Roaring Out of Recession,” Harvard Business Review, March 2010.
³ For more, see Mehrdad Baghai, Stephen Coley, and David White, The Alchemy of Growth, Basic Books, September 1999; Mehrdad Baghai, Patrick
Viguerie, and Sven Smit, The granularity of growth: How to identify the sources of growth and drive enduring company performance, John Wiley & Sons,
2007.
⁴ Biljana Cvetanovski, Eric Hazan, Jesko Perrey, and Dennis Spillecke, “Are you a growth leader? The seven beliefs and behaviors that growth leaders
share,” McKinsey, September 26, 2019.

2 Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

Exhibit 1
Follow this
Follow this holistic
holistic growth
growth blueprint
blueprintto
to achieve
achieve sustained
sustained profitable
profitablegrowth.
growth.

1. Set an aspirational
mindset and culture
Foster an inclusive and sustainable
mindset, set bold, actionable 2.4×
ambitions, and develop a culture Companies that have successfully
championed by all stakeholders. adopted growth mindsets are 2.4x
more likely to outperform.

2. Activate pathways Expand the core 97%

Innovate into adjacencies Companies are 97% more likely
to outperform when they invest
Ignite breakout businesses in multiple pathways for growth.

3. Execute with excellence Lay the foundation

(Growth operating model and 3×
dynamic resource re-allocation) Having the right growth-oriented
operating models and capabilities
Programmatically execute on delivers 3x more TSR than peers.
inorganic opportunities
(Ecosystems, M&A, alliances/JVs)

Develop functional capabilities

(eg, marketing, CX, sales &
channel, digital, innovation)

Set an aspirational mindset and funding from growth is one whose actions do
culture not match their aspirations. C-suite leaders
C-suite growth leaders share a common who choose growth are much less likely to yield
series of mindsets and behaviors from their when challenges arise, finding opportunity in
communications to their willingness to learn headwinds and reasons to innovate where others
through failure. Those who display at least three retreat to conventional defensive playbooks.
of the five key growth mindsets are 2.4 times
more likely to profitably outgrow their peers A further differentiator of growth leaders is their
(Exhibit 2). ability to build organizational buy-in, including
from the board and investors. They tend to
The first part of the timeless holistic growth directly involve the board in their growth planning
blueprint is to support aspirations with clear and they proactively communicate with investors⁵
targets, milestones, and motivators—creating using significant and credible targets to show
a North Star that feeds the broader strategic how the growth plan will generate value. Growth
and cultural narrative of the business. Leaders leaders allocate the resources required to
are able to commit their company to action achieve goals and are more willing to change their
and maintain this focus in the face of timely operating model to enable growth, if that is what
jolts, inspiring an organization-wide culture is needed.
that continually seeks out and pursues growth
opportunities. Activate the growth pathways
When leaders choose growth and develop the
On the other hand, the leader who aspires to right leadership mindsets and behaviors to
growth but underinvests in initiatives or removes support that choice, their natural position is

5 For more, see “Where companies with a long-term view outperform their peers,” McKinsey Global Institute, February 8, 2017.

Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

3
 Exhibit 2
Growth leaders set, communicate, and commit to growth consistently and
Growth
with leaders resourcing.
significant set, communicate, and commit to growth consistently and
with signi cant resourcing.
Mindsets growth leaders share

“I favor timely action over

perfection.”

70%
“I have a growth story I tell prioritize speed over perfection “I am willing to fail."
all the time.”

80% 70%
make multiple long-term growth
communicate growth successes Those that adopt bets rather than just a few
often, internally and externally three or more of these
mindsets are

2.4×
“I focus on long-term more likely to “I know my customer as
growth.” outperform their a person.”
peers

60% 70%
have a clear multi-year mandate to build an understanding of
pursue growth initiatives, and the customers’ needs through formal
autonomy to do so without having to and informal methods (ethnography,
show short-term results surveys, in-store visits, etc)

to look for opportunity wherever it exists. Those Expand the core business
companies that set growth strategies to address all Growth begins with the core, and growth leaders
available pathways to growth are 97 percent more understand the importance of optimizing their
likely to achieve profitable above-peer growth. current core business. With more than 80 percent
of total revenue growth, on average, derived from
The second part of the timeless holistic growth the core, achieving excellence in current operations
blueprint is activating three pathways: expanding is crucial.⁶ Some sectors—healthcare, for example—
the core business, innovating into new markets achieve as much as 90 percent of growth from
and adjacencies, and purposefully pursuing the core business, while others, such as financial
opportunities for breakthrough growth through services, generate around 74 percent from the core
new-business building or mergers and acquisitions and 23 percent or more from adjacent opportunities
(M&A). (Exhibit 3).

The most successful companies are able to balance These variations are partly explained by the
and sequence these growth choices in response to idiosyncrasies of different industries. For example,
their changing operating environments, advances healthcare businesses make long-term R&D and
in technology, and emerging customer needs and capital investments for innovation, but their patents
preferences. enable them to generate most of their growth

⁶ Statistics in this section are based on McKinsey’s analysis of data from Corporate Performance Analytics by McKinsey, regulatory filings, and
S&P Global, for the period 2005–19; we have analyzed the 3,000 largest public companies as of 2018 reporting revenues by segment. Total
revenue growth split is derived from the summation of the respective company segment revenues in this sample.

4 Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

Exhibit 3
Growth begins with the core, however, growth leaders expand beyond the core
Growth
to drive begins
growth.with the core, however, growth leaders expand beyond the core
to drive growth.

Weighted average share of total revenue growth¹

82% 12% 6%
of revenue growth comes from of growth comes from of growth comes from
core growth adjacency growth breakout growth

Distribution of growth varies by sector.

Share of total revenue growth, by industry

Core growth² Adjacency growth³ Breakout growth⁴

2% 4% 3%
7% 10% 7%
8% 13% 12%
6% 14%
7% 15% 23%
8% 11%

90% 87% 83% 82% 79% 79%

77% 74%

Healthcare Information Industrials Consumer Materials Consumer TelCo Banks and

technology discretion- staples services diversified
ary financials

1
Largest 3,000 publicly listed companies by revenue in 2018 with an average revenue of >1bn USD in 2005-09 and reliable business segment data, 2005–09
to 2015–19 (N=1,797).
2
Core growth = Growth in industry with the largest share of revenue at the start of the analysis period.
3
Adjacency growth = Growth in business segments that are within the sub-industries the company is already active in.
4
Breakout growth = Growth into a new sub-industry.
Source: McKinsey Corporate Performance Analytics, Capital IQ, and Strategy Analytics

within the core. Financial-services companies, on growth pockets (for example, shifting product mix
the other hand, tend to be more able to move into to higher growth value or premium segments and
adjacent services, with many companies actively higher growth channels such as e-commerce),
making big bets across industry sub-sectors (eg, innovation of the core products and services,
investment banks entering wealth management, and improved executional excellence in their
and vice versa). commercial capabilities.

Regardless of industry, growth leaders turbocharge Having a growth mindset is especially important
their core through a mix of strategic shifts to higher for the core business. Growth outperformers

Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint 5

 almost always grow their core—either through their refresh growth maps to consistently surface
main products, sectors, or local market. In fact, it is opportunities, to understand which are most
unlikely that they can raise their growth trajectory achievable, and set growth strategies to capture
without winning in their local market.⁷ In fact, fewer them. They choose among the different avenues to
than one in five of the companies in our sample that grow adjacently, such as M&A or business building,
had below-average growth rates in their local region and they evolve their operating models to support
managed to outperform their peers in growth. these growth choices.

Whatever the exact mix of strategies and focus Growth leaders are also increasingly building
areas, growth leaders are maximizing their core ecosystems around their core capabilities and
through all available means. And they are twice as assets and deploying new offerings into adjacent
likely to report having identified pockets of growth products or markets. Tencent, for instance, has
within their existing business. become an Asian tech giant worth around $500
billion through its online platforms that include
Innovate into adjacencies messaging, gaming, payments, e-commerce
Having a strong core is essential. Outperformers and advertising—in addition to evolving its social
build beyond it to achieve their growth aspirations. messaging app WeChat into an extensive “super
Businesses that expand into adjacent industries app.” Tencent’s full ecosystem offering spans
or segments are 20 percent more likely to achieve fintech, entertainment and media, cab hailing,
greater growth than their peers. location sharing, and more, fueling a revenue
compound annual growth rate of 28 percent over
The obvious places to look for growth are new the decade 2011 to 2021.
geographies and adjacent industries where growth
leaders can adapt their existing offerings to serve Ignite breakout businesses
new customer segments. For example, CVS Health According to McKinsey research on more than
transformed into a consumer-centric, integrated 1,000 business leaders, on average, executives
health solutions company by expanding its business believe 50 percent of their revenues will come from
from pharmacy and retail to healthcare services, new products, services, or businesses within the
which accounted for 67 percent of the company’s next five years. Not surprisingly, many are looking
revenue growth from 2005–19. beyond natural adjacencies to exploit entirely new
business opportunities. Between 2018 and 2020,
Growth leaders recognize the need to unlock the “new-business building” doubled its appearances
next wave of growth through expansion beyond the among the top three items on executive agendas.
core. However, choosing the best adjacencies is
critical. Growth leaders are increasingly harnessing Expanding into new markets through business
advanced analytics to identify promising or building can unlock new opportunities without
previously overlooked opportunities that leverage cannibalizing existing products and services. Done
core competencies and provide a good chance to right, the rewards can be well worth the risk, as
establish a strong leadership position. McKinsey illustrated by a number of growth leaders across
research shows that businesses that expand to different industries.
adjacencies with high similarity to their core and
exploit their unique competitive advantages are Amazon famously expanded beyond its
more likely to profitably outperform their peers on e-commerce business into public cloud services
growth. through Amazon Web Services (AWS). By
leveraging its core competencies of brand and
Outperformers use the full growth blueprint to excel commercial strength, it built AWS into a business
in adjacencies, with a particular focus on strategies that generated $62 billion revenue.
that build on core competencies. They use and

⁷ Defined as the largest region in the portfolio by revenue.

6 Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

Science and technology innovator Danaher choices at the right time to drive both short-term
Corporation combatted the single-digit growth in and long-term growth.
its core industrial businesses by looking toward
high-growth markets in life sciences and niche Leaders who choose growth support their
diagnostics. After testing the waters with small ambitions by prioritizing a critical set of execution
acquisitions and investing heavily in its platforms enablers: operating model and resource
business, Danaher spun off its old industrial core, allocation, ecosystems, M&A, joint ventures and
Fortive, repositioned life sciences and diagnostics alliances, and functional capabilities.
as its new core business—and beat the S&P 500
by 3.8 times between 2002 and 2016. While Built-for-growth operating models and
core growth is critical, investments in breakout resource allocation
opportunities could enable a long-term shift to a Leaders who fully commit to growth choose
new core within a higher-growth market. these initiatives for purposeful and assertive
investment and are 60 percent more likely to
Marcus by Goldman Sachs launched its first digital regularly reallocate resources from lower-return
consumer business in 2016, allowing customers to to higher-return spaces. These leaders fund
bank from their phones. In the ensuing six years, it more dynamically, relying less on historical
has attracted millions of customers, accumulated budgets that can be psychologically “anchoring,”
deposits of over $92 billion, and made more than $7 and they actively explore how to fuel growth
billion in loans via a combination of organic growth, without eroding their existing core businesses.⁸
acquisitions, and partnerships with Apple and
Amazon. Alongside this willingness to dynamically
reallocate resources, growth leaders are more
Growth leaders can improve their odds of achieving likely to have multiple, tailored operating models
growth in breakout opportunities by committing to to support their unique growth initiatives and
innovation, identifying and understanding the needs opportunities. While the core business may have
and wants of valued customers, and developing the a distinct, more traditional operating model,
right value propositions to appeal to them. Given the breakout opportunities may adopt a more agile,
accelerating pace of innovation, growth leaders also learning-driven operating approach, for example,
look to agile methodologies, strategic alliances, and having small, cross-functional teams with the
M&A, with a willingness to rapidly test and learn, fail autonomy to focus on rapidly building and testing
and iterate, and invest in scaling opportunities. products, features, or services with customers.
They segment their product-development
Of course, pursuing breakout growth can require processes and combine standard product-
longer-term investment and commitment before development stage gates for incremental
seeing returns. That’s why growth leaders need innovations while using venture-capital-inspired
the mettle to stay the course and make significant stage gates and funding mechanisms for bolder
investments—or the sense to know when to call it growth projects. This agility helps them respond
quits. robustly to timely jolts and opportunities.

In managing performance, growth leaders adopt

Execute with excellence a growth vocabulary, leveraging the adage, “You
This is the critical and third portion of the timeless get what you measure.” They actively track
holistic growth blueprint, where strategy meets leading and lagging growth-oriented metrics,
action, and orchestrated execution is the final step such as recurring revenue, revenue per customer,
in achieving growth. Execution works hand-in-hand and customer-acquisition cost, tying them to
with strategy to empower leaders to make the right organizational goals and incentives.

⁸ Tim Koller, Dan Lovallo, and Olivier Sibony, “Bias busters: Being objective about budgets,” McKinsey Quarterly, September 28, 2018; Michael
Birsham, Marja Engel, and Olivier Sibony, “Avoiding the quicksand: Ten techniques for more agile corporate resource allocation,” McKinsey
Quarterly, October 1, 2013.

Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint 7

 Strengthen ecosystems, M&A, and joint Functional capabilities
ventures Execution is impossible without the right functional
Specialization in a sea of sameness is a strengths and growth leaders identify which new
differentiator. That’s why growth leaders often look functional capabilities are needed—or need to
outside of their businesses to find quick access change—to support growth initiatives, both in the
to complementary skills and capabilities to buy or short term and over longer-term innovation horizons.
scale innovation and growth. Those who do this are
30 to 50 percent more likely to continually scan for From building out AI and advanced analytics
these types of alliances, joint ventures, and M&A platforms to deepening their customer experience
opportunities. capabilities—and even enhancing or modernizing
existing capabilities like pricing and marketing—
In recent years, digital M&A has become growth leaders ensure the organization’s
increasingly popular and effective, accounting for capabilities are positioned to fuel growth. While
double the share of all M&A value from 2011–21. the exact blend varies by industry and company, a
Businesses are becoming increasingly strategic common cross-sectoral focus point is harnessing
about how they evaluate and leverage these digital and analytics to revamp distribution,
digital transactions, from acquiring new talent marketing returns, customer value management
and capabilities to accessing new markets and (CVM),10 and dynamic pricing.11
products.9 Many companies with programmatic
M&A strategies (that is, steadily growing through In distribution, e-commerce is a powerful lever for
two or more acquisitions of less than 30 percent collecting valuable digital customer data along
of their own market cap per year) have added the purchasing journey and ensuring effective and
digital-investment themes to their M&A blueprints. measurable media spend. Nike, for example, was
Over almost 20 years of research, it has become able to increase its nike.com e-commerce platform’s
clear that programmatic M&A is the only M&A contribution to sales from 7.5 percent to 24 percent,
strategy that delivers outsized total shareholder thereby fuelling a compound annual growth rate of
return (TSR). M&A investment themes, especially 6.7 percent from 2017–21, a time frame that includes
those on digital M&A, should be highly specific and the height of the pandemic.12
clearly articulate how they will add value for the
acquirer. For customer value management, investing
in greater personalization through advanced
Forming ecosystems with partners is another way analytics and digital capabilities can improve both
to build capabilities and expand offerings more the customer experience and client lifetime value.
quickly, while simultaneously enhancing customer American Express, for instance, leverages advanced
experience and enlarging reach and innovation analytics to provide customized recommendations
opportunities across the ecosystem. This creates to customers based on their location, opening
value along two dimensions—it allows participants additional transaction opportunities both for their
to consolidate a range of customers, often across partners and for their own credit cards.
sectors, and to play a pivotal role in optimizing
touchpoints in both B2C and B2B.

9 Michael Bogobowicz, Anika Pflanzer, Leandro Santon, and Brett Wilson, “How to find and maximize digital value in any M&A deal,” McKinsey,
November 9, 2020; CapitaIQ, McKinsey analysis.
10 Customer value management is a systematic approach to working with loyal customers. It is based on personalized offerings targeted
to meet particular customer needs, created using advanced analytics, and aimed at increasing lifetime customer value through raising purchasing
frequency and average basket size.
11 Rachel Diebner, David Malfara, Kevin Neher, Mike Thompson, and Maxence Vancauwenberghe, “Prediction: The future of CX,” McKinsey
Quarterly, February 24, 2021; Ralph Breuer, Kedar Naik, Bogdan Toma, and Martina Yanni, “Executive quick take: A guide to implementing
marketing-and-sales transformations that unlock sustainable growth,” McKinsey, September 23, 2019; Matt Deimund, Michael Drory, Daniel
Law, and Maria Valdivieso, “The five things sales-growth winners do to invest in their people,” McKinsey, October 9, 2018; Minti Ray, Stefano
Redaelli, Sidney Santos, Jared Sclove, and Andrew Wong, “Accelerating revenue growth through tech-enabled commercial excellence,”
McKinsey, December 4, 2019.
12 Statista, ecommerceDB, and S&P Capital IQ.

8 Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint

Greater analytical sophistication enables — Am I establishing the right enablers to
companies to differentiate pricing across execute against my growth aspirations and
dimensions such as region, channel, and customer strategies?
lifecycle.13 A leading Asian e-commerce company
was able to increase gross margins by ten — Do I have the right operating model and
percentage points and gross merchandise value by resource allocation to achieve my growth
three percentage points by developing a dynamic ambitions?
pricing capability.14
— And am I investing in the right functional
Commercial capabilities are bolstered by capabilities?
investments in digital—in fact, growth leaders
are 60 percent more likely to have successfully
used AI and advanced analytics to predict The choices leaders make in response to these
customer behaviors and become a “sensing and questions differentiate those who achieve growth
predicting” organization. Growth leaders also from those who aspire to it but don’t get results.
tend to invest in expanding and deepening their
customer experience capabilities to streamline and Take two leaders of similar-sized businesses
personalize customer journeys. operating in the same market. Both see an
opportunity for growth and pursue it, but their
Beyond the commercial excellence, growth leaders outcomes are very different. Why?
map R&D and product development portfolios,
balanced across incremental innovations and bolder The one who made a choice to grow aligned their
long-term breakout initiatives with clear mapping board and leadership team on the company’s
to the capabilities needed to execute. Tangentially, direction and dedicated the necessary resources
it is imperative to ensure that growth leaders are to growth. They adapted the operating model
investing in their people, creating a pipeline of talent for the long term and understood the risk profile
that will help strengthen and broaden the tools of the new businesses they were trying to build.
needed to achieve their growth aspirations. They invested meaningfully in building the right
functional capabilities, sometimes at the expense
of a few quarters of earnings, to achieve their
Choosing to grow: the subtle difference long-term growth aspirations.
between success and failure
The growth blueprint defines the timeless elements The other leader, who didn’t explicitly “choose
on which leaders need to focus diligently once growth,” also did a lot of things right. They hired
they’ve made a deliberate and purposeful choice the right talent and took the time to understand
to grow. This blueprint prepares an organization to the new businesses they wanted to build. They
grow in the face of timely jolts. believed they were allocating enough resources
to growth, but ultimately their focus was divided
The blueprint encourages leaders to answer a series by an emphasis on quarterly earnings and
of clear questions: short-term profitability. Though they aspired to
growth, they didn’t have the long-term strategy
— Am I setting the right aspiration, mindset, or commitment to achieve it. They tried to protect
and culture to encourage growth? Are my the management team so they could meet their
ambitions high enough, and how can I ensure my short-term goals but didn’t secure buy-in from
organization has the full potential to achieve it? the board for long-term growth initiatives.

— Am I actively choosing growth opportunities Making the conscious choice to grow creates
across my core and adjacencies? powerful momentum that orients the entire

13 Claus Heintzeler, Mathias Kullman, Karin Lauer, and Maximilian Totzauer, “Pricing and promotions: The analytics opportunity,” McKinsey, June
28, 2021.
14 Gadi BenMark, Sebastian Klapdor, Mathias Kullmann, and Ramji Sundararajan, “How retailers can drive profitable growth through dynamic
pricing,” McKinsey, March 27, 2017.

Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint 9

 business toward that goal, from the C-suite to an organization to unlock growth opportunities in
frontline employees. The growth blueprint defines timely jolts. The clarity of purpose and vision that
the timeless elements on which leaders need to comes from choice is what helps leaders and their
focus diligently once they have made a deliberate teams believe in the seemingly impossible and make
and purposeful choice to grow. It also prepares it happen.

Michael Birshan is a senior partner in McKinsey’s London office, where Biljana Cvetanovski is a partner; Rebecca
Doherty is a partner in the San Francisco office; Tjark Freundt is a senior partner in the Hamburg office; Andre Gaeta
is an associate partner in the Sao Paulo office; Greg Kelly is a senior partner in the Atlanta office; Erik Roth is a senior
partner in the Stamford office; Ishaan Seth and Jill Zucker are senior partners in the New York office.

The authors wish to thank Jaidit Brar, Luis Cerquiera, Vincent Cremers, Brian Gregg, Eric Hazan, Martin Hirt, Anna
Koivuniemi, Pablo Leon, Duncan Miller, and Dennis Spillecke for their contributions to this article.

We are also grateful to the many McKinsey colleagues who contributed their industry expertise and perspectives to this
research: Marco Aukofer, Matt Banholzer, Kurt Bazarewski, Dani Ebersole, Stephen Guerin, Tim Koller, Karin Löffler,
Katherine Lovemore, Patrick McCurdy, Sakina Mehenni, Camille Meeùs, Bridget Morton, Michael Park, Tido Röder, Jeff
Rudnicki, Manny Sasson, Balint Stellek, Marija Vukojevic, Qian Wan, and Michelle Wycoff.

Copyright © 2022 McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved.

10 Choosing to grow: The leader’s blueprint