Lionel Barber

Lionel Barber is the author of Bonfire of the Consultancies (Prospect, 2023), a review essay critiquing the management-consulting industry. Reviewing When McKinsey Comes to Town and The Big Con, Barber argues that consulting — a global industry grossing up to $900B a year — “has largely escaped blame for the sins of modern Capitalism.” His piece traces the industry’s history (from Taylorism’s adoption even in the Soviet Union to McKinsey becoming “as synonymous with managerial reform as Hoover is with vacuum cleaning”), and indicts its conflicts of interest, fee-driven avarice, and work for despotic regimes — including McKinsey’s Saudi Vision 2030 “sentiment analysis” that was used to track political opponents. His through-line: “The disconnect between the firm’s high-minded public image and the grubby pursuit of profit was unsustainable.”

Context: Lionel Barber is a British journalist who served as editor of the Financial Times from 2005 to 2020.

Where this appears

• Bonfire of the Consultancies — author of this Prospect review essay critiquing the management-consulting industry.