D. Ronald Daniel (February 26, 1930 – December 16, 2023) was a longtime top senior partner and director at management consultancy

McKinsey & Company McKinsey & Company (informally McKinsey or McK) is an American multinational strategy and management consulting firm that offers professional services to corporations, governments, and other organizations. Founded in 1926 by James O. McKinse ...

, serving as

managing director A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

(chief executive) from 1976 to 1988.

Biography

Ronald Daniel graduated from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the Methodi ...

with a B.A. in mathematics in 1952 and received an M.B.A. from

Harvard Business School Harvard Business School (HBS) is the graduate school, graduate business school of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university. Located in Allston, Massachusetts, HBS owns Harvard Business Publishing, which p ...

in 1954.

Business career

After graduating in 1954, Daniel served as an officer of the U.S. Navy Supply corps, where he worked with early IBM mainframes. He joined McKinsey & Company, Inc. in 1957 and was a senior partner from 1968 to 1990. He served as managing director for twelve years (1976-1988) preceding Fred Gluck, and was senior partner emeritus of the firm. At McKinsey, Daniel developed the concept of "success factors", which led to the emergence of critical success factors, those "areas of usinessactivity that should receive constant and careful attention from management". He hired and mentored future managing director

Rajat Gupta Rajat Kumar Gupta (; born ) is an Indian-American business executive who, as CEO, was the first foreign-born managing director of management consultancy firm McKinsey & Company from 1994 to 2003. In 2012, he was convicted of insider trading and ...

. He was

Jeffrey Skilling Jeffrey Keith Skilling (born November 25, 1953) is an American businessman who in 2006 was convicted of federal felony charges relating to the Enron scandal. Skilling, who was CEO of Enron during the company's collapse, was eventually sentence ...

's former boss before Skilling became CEO of

Enron Enron Corporation was an American Energy development, energy, Commodity, commodities, and services company based in Houston, Texas. It was led by Kenneth Lay and developed in 1985 via a merger between Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth, both re ...

. In 2004, he described himself as "the bridge between McKinsey's founding generation and the present". Outside McKinsey, he was a director of

Yum! Brands Yum! Brands, Inc. (sometimes called simply Yum!) is an American multinational fast food corporation. It is a spin-off of PepsiCo, after they acquired KFC, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. PepsiCo divested the brands in 1997, and these consolidated as ...

and chairman of New York-based private equity firm

Ripplewood Holdings Ripplewood is an American private equity firm based in New York City that focuses on leveraged buyouts, venture capital, late stage venture, growth capital, management buyouts, leveraged recapitalizations and other illiquid investments. Ripplewo ...

Public service career

Daniel had a longtime affiliation with

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

. He served for many years as treasurer of the university. Daniel was a member of the

Harvard Corporation The President and Fellows of Harvard College, also called the Harvard Corporation or just the Corporation, is the smaller and more powerful of Harvard University's two governing boards. It refers to itself as the oldest corporation in the Western ...

and chairman of the board of the

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical and Academic Area, Longwood Medical Area in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is the third oldest medical school in the Un ...

. He was also chairman of the Harvard Management Company, which oversees over $20 billion in assets and endowments. Daniel held an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Wesleyan and was chairman emeritus of the school's board of trustees. He was a member of the board of Thirteen/

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as Thirteen (stylized as THIRTEEN), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the Educ ...

(New York's public broadcasting station), a member of the board of the

Brookings Institution The Brookings Institution, often stylized as Brookings, is an American think tank that conducts research and education in the social sciences, primarily in economics (and tax policy), metropolitan policy, governance, foreign policy, global econo ...

, and a trustee of

Rockefeller University The Rockefeller University is a Private university, private Medical research, biomedical Research university, research and graduate-only university in New York City, New York. It focuses primarily on the biological and medical sciences and pro ...

. He was a member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other ...

and the

Council on Foreign Relations The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is an American think tank focused on Foreign policy of the United States, U.S. foreign policy and international relations. Founded in 1921, it is an independent and nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organi ...

References

21st-century American engineers Wesleyan University alumni Harvard Business School alumni Living people McKinsey & Company people Rockefeller Foundation people 20th-century American businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) {{US-business-bio-1930s-stub