Where there’s a great business rivalry and one company is investing big on turning their thought leadership into a network of branded company podcasts, it won’t be a surprise to see an audio battleground among the top players. I’ve already highlighted my former company Boston Consulting Group (for Climate Vision 2050), today we’ll look at a show from McKinsey & Company, and I’m sure I’ll cover Bain & Company in the future as well.

The McKinsey Podcast

I listened to their episode “When things get rocky, practice deliberate calm”, and the format reminded me of one of my favorite shows, Hidden Brain. I love the style of taking a well established expert, in McKinsey’s cases their VP / Partners, and tell a story not just about their formal area of expertise, but also a personal connection they have to the topic.

It takes a lot of extra work to find the right guests and the right episode themes that can blend both the personal and work sides. Not to mention needing an experienced host like McKinsey has with Roberta Fusaro to establish the connection. It’s great here, and so many other brands could learn from this approach to humanizing and storytelling around their execs as podcast guests.