Kearney is an American global
management consulting firm with offices in more than 40 countries worldwide.
Kearney's predecessor firm was founded in
Chicago by
James O. McKinsey in 1926; he hired
Andrew Thomas "Tom" Kearney as his first partner in 1929. After James McKinsey died in 1937, the Chicago office split into its own company, led by Tom Kearney and called McKinsey, A.T. Kearney, and Company. In 1947, it was renamed A.T. Kearney and Company.
In January 2020, the firm underwent a major rebranding and changed its name from A.T. Kearney to Kearney.
Practice areas
Kearney has offices in 40 countries and has more than 5,300 employees.
It operates under a unique "one-partner, one-vote" structure, by which each of the company's 300+ partners has an equal vote on governance matters.
Industries and capabilities
Kearney covers a wide range of industries and capabilities. Industry specialties include aerospace and defense, automotive, chemicals, communications media and technology, consumer products and retail, financial institutions, healthcare, metals and mining, oil and gas, private equity, public sector, transportation, and infrastructure and utilities. Major service lines are in strategy, analytics, mergers and acquisitions, innovation, operations, technology strategy, organization and transformation, marketing and sales, procurement, and sustainability. The firm is particularly well known for its operations, supply chain and transformation expertise, ranking among the top firms in these areas.
Institutional partnership
Kearney is a longstanding partner of the
World Economic Forum, attending Forum events and advising on global platforms and regional agendas and serving as a member of the Alliance of CEO Climate Members, and Racial Justice in Business. Kearney began its relationship with the European Management Forum in 1971, and it became an institutional partner in 1997.
Pro-bono engagements
Kearney provides pro-bono engagements with organizations that support social and racial justice. For example, in 2023, they conducted an impact analysis of the first AAPI-entered Speaker Expo in North America that presented topics about culture, leadership, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.
History
In 1926,
James O. McKinsey founded his firm of "accountants and management engineers"; three years later he hired
Tom Kearney as the first partner at
McKinsey & Company.
Upon McKinsey's sudden death in 1937, the remaining partners disagreed on how to best run the firm and by 1939, they had split into three organizations: Scovell, Wellington & Company, the accounting practice run by Oliver Wellington that McKinsey & Company had purchased before McKinsey's death; McKinsey, A.T. Kearney & Company, the Chicago consulting office run by Tom Kearney; and
McKinsey & Company, run by
Marvin Bower. In 1947, when Bower purchased the rights to the McKinsey name from Kearney, Tom renamed the firm after himself, creating A.T. Kearney and Company. In 1972, the name was shortened to A.T. Kearney.
- Present A.T. Kearney Headquarters and its predecessor firm
McKinsey's
Chicago Office established in 1926
- Office established in 1964
- ATK's First Asian Branch
Tokyo Office established in 1972
- Office established in 1985
- Kearney Korea's
Seoul
Seoul, officially Seoul Special Metropolitan City, is the capital city, capital and largest city of South Korea. The broader Seoul Metropolitan Area, encompassing Seoul, Gyeonggi Province and Incheon, emerged as the world's List of cities b ...
Office established in 1995
A.T. Kearney opened its first international office in
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...
,
Germany
Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
in 1964. Its first office in Asia was opened in 1972, in
Tokyo,
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
.
Kearney established its Global Business Policy Council in 1992. This is a specialized foresight and strategic analysis unit which conducts research and analysis. It regularly ranks near the top of the
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...
's list of best for-profit private-sector think tanks; it was ranked fourth globally in 2020. The council also hosts and an annual CEO Retreat, whose attendees include academic, corporate, and government "thought leaders". Membership is by invitation only, and current members may veto the invitation of competitors.
In 1995, A.T. Kearney established its Seoul, Korea office (A.T. Kearney Korea LLC) and was acquired by the American information technology company
EDS for $569 million. However, the ''
Financial Times
The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and also published digitally that focuses on business and economic Current affairs (news format), current affairs. Based in London, the paper is owned by a Jap ...
'' later described a clash between "A.T. Kearney's individualistic, entrepreneurial style and the more bureaucratic approach of EDS." These tensions peaked when the
dotcom bubble
The dot-com bubble (or dot-com boom) was a stock market bubble that ballooned during the late-1990s and peaked on Friday, March 10, 2000. This period of market growth coincided with the widespread adoption of the World Wide Web and the Intern ...
burst, affectin both companies results. EDS eventually shed hundreds of jobs at A.T. Kearney, reduced compensation, consolidated back-office functions, and eventually relocated A.T. Kearney's headquarters from Chicago to
Plano, Texas
Plano ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "flat surface" /'plano/) is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, where it is the largest city in Collin County, Texas, Collin County. A small portion of Plano is located in Denton County, Texas, Denton Count ...
.
By mid-2005, A.T. Kearney had experienced 11 straight quarters of shrinking revenues, including being unprofitable the final three quarters. In 2006, A.T. Kearney CEO Henner Klein and the consultancy's management struck a deal with EDS CEO Michael Jordan to buy the firm back, and A.T. Kearney was once again an independent firm.
In 2019, Kearney bought Cervello, a business analytics and data management consultancy which had offices in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
,
Dallas
Dallas () is a city in the U.S. state of Texas and the most populous city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of Texas metropolitan areas, most populous metropolitan area in Texas and the Metropolitan statistical area, fourth-most ...
,
New York,
London
London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...
and
Bangalore
Bengaluru, also known as Bangalore (List of renamed places in India#Karnataka, its official name until 1 November 2014), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the southern States and union territories of India, Indian state of Kar ...
.
In November 2022, Kearney acquired Optano, a Germany-based software firm which worked on supply chain planning.
In January 2025 Kearney announced the acquisition of Germany-based project management firm Project Partners, specialized in
SAP transformation and managing large IT projects, to further extend its portfolio.
In February 2025, Kearney announced the strategic acquisition of IMTEK Inc., a business consulting and systems integration company focused on services and solutions for supply chain planning and execution
Recruitment and alumni
In 2012, the career review site
Glassdoor ranked Kearney as the 4th most difficult company to interview with. In Australia, this is underscored by the hiring of just 10 business analysts out of 1,200 applicants in 2021. The firm primarily operates in a generalist model, where consultants can be staffed on a variety of industry and functional projects.
There is a fixed training curriculum beginning with an “experience week” to introduce staff to consulting and meet colleagues globally.
Kearney also has a global mobility program that enables its consultants to live and work abroad. In 2016 and 2017, the career review site
Glassdoor ranked Kearney as the highest-paying company for employees in the United States.
The company says it has 23,000 alumni, who are invited to participate in the company's Kearney Week, held in September of each year.
References
External links
Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kearney
1926 establishments in Illinois
Consulting firms established in 1926
International management consulting firms
Companies based in Chicago
Privately held companies based in Illinois
Management consulting firms of the United States