Executive Interview: Onboarding and Technology

Speakers: Marie Padberg–Leader of Global Talent Attraction, McKinsey & Company 

Blair Ciesil–Leader of Global Talent Attraction, McKinsey & Company 

Marie Padberg is a Leader of Global Talent Attraction for McKinsey & Company. She and her co-lead, Blair Ciesil, have a unique shared model to set the firm’s talent attraction strategy. Marie joined McKinsey in 2003 as a consultant serving clients in marketing and customer value creation across a range of industries, including banking, insurance, and telecommunications. Over the course of her work and studies, she realized her passion for fostering talent and in 2007 transitioned to McKinsey’s People team with a focus on recruiting. In 2012, she founded McKinsey’s Next Generation Women Leadership program. 

Prior to McKinsey, Marie worked with Goldman Sachs in their Investment Banking and Private Banking groups, and with Coty, Inc. 

Marie has an MBA from INSEAD, a M.S. of Science from ESCP Europe, and a B.Sc. in Business Administration from the University of Passau. She lives in Amsterdam with her husband and their twin daughters and son. 

Blair Ciesil is a Leader of Global Talent Attraction for McKinsey & Company. She and her co-lead, Marie Padberg, have a unique shared model to set the firm’s talent attraction strategy and lead a team of ~1,200 professionals globally to hire into all roles across the firm. 

Over a nearly 20-year McKinsey career, Blair has played leadership roles across the full Talent Attraction model – from office hiring to campus sourcing, to experienced hire strategy, to founding and leading global Centers of Excellence to drive innovation and expertise at scale (e.g., TA Digital, Risk & Policies). 

Blair started her career at McKinsey as a consultant focused on marketing and branding and worked with a client for two years to lead a large-scale brand transformation before returning to the firm to begin her tenure in Talent Attraction. Blair has a dual JD/MBA degree from Northwestern University and an A.B. from Duke University. She lives in Virginia with her husband, two (energetic) children and two (poorly behaved) dogs. 

McKinsey is a global management consulting firm committed to helping organizations accelerate sustainable and inclusive growth. We work with clients across the private, public, and social sectors to solve complex problems and create positive change for all their stakeholders. We combine bold strategies and transformative technologies to help organizations innovate more sustainably, achieve lasting gains in performance, and build workforces that will thrive for this generation and the next. 

Topics include: 

• What is McKinsey doing to find highly skilled workers who have not gone through traditional routes? 
• What is McKinsey doing to ensure its talent culture is both distinctive and inclusive, attracting and developing talent from a wide range of backgrounds? 
• What types of changes do leading companies like McKinsey need to make to succeed in the emerging talent market? 
• The importance of differentiating onboarding experiences for various parts of the workforce and its impact on differentiated onboarding 
• What should companies do — and what is McKinsey doing — to enable employees to take more control of their professional development? 
• Insights from Marie’s journey 
• Insights from Blair’s journey 
• And more! 

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