Who You'll Work With

You will be based in our Houston office as part of our Chemicals Insights team. The Chemicals practice is a global network of chemical experts and practitioners. At any point in time, approximately 250 consultants are involved in chemicals-related client projects. In the past five years alone, our Chemicals practice has supported clients across the world on more than 1,000 strategic, operations, commercial and organization projects.

Powerful forces are reshaping the chemicals industry. As a result, the formula for success in its market is changing. Our industry experience and global reach make us uniquely positioned to help our clients address evolving challenges - and capture new opportunities within the chemicals industry.

Your impact within our firm

You will work in teams to solve some of the most pressing and complex issues at clients as well as support the development of new proprietary market perspectives for an array of value chains across the industry.

In this role, you will be staffed on client engagements and be responsible for identifying issues, forming hypotheses, conducting analysis, and synthesizing conclusions into recommendations. You will work in teams of typically 3-5 consultants, playing an active role in all aspects of the client engagement ranging from strategy and operations to conducting due diligence. Examples of the type of work include a detailed assessment/scan of potential end markets in order to identify potential growth opportunities for a leading advanced materials company and conducting a strategic benchmarking for a global chemicals player, highlighting the role of end markets, competition, geography, pricing and operations in driving value creation and profits. Additional examples include developing market-based insights into targeted markets for a US chemicals player, including assessment of the most attractive market segments, competitive landscape, internal capabilities and potential winning business models and formulating a sustainability roadmap for a global materials player as part of enterprise-wide transformation.

You will also contribute to McKinsey's industry knowledge by staying up to date with the latest in the chemicals industry and you will contribute to proprietary models and analyses. This includes gathering the information necessary to develop these tools and synthesizing your findings into McKinsey formatted products. These products may be in the form of complex models and summary reports which evolve into standalone presentations that outline key findings and recommendations to internal and external audiences.

This role includes ~50% of time staffed on client engagements (with some travel involved) and ~50% of time working on internal tools and knowledge. The internal tools and knowledge developed can be across a variety of topics. An example includes building a tool across a suite of chemicals for microeconomic fundamental models where in client settings we take models to develop customized analysis or perspectives. Other tools developed to bring customized analysis and perspectives to clients. Internal knowledge time will be focused on developing expertise in particular area of chemicals or value chains of chemicals; writing insight articles, developing industry perspective documents, participating in conferences and helping to prepare materials.

Your qualifications and skills

• Undergraduate degree in chemistry or engineering; advanced degree is a plus
• 1+ years of relevant experience in the chemicals industry; in various roles including operations, technical, commercial/procurement or market analysis
• In-depth understanding of key products, value chains, applications, technology platforms in specialty chemicals, advanced materials and plastics
• General understanding of chemicals/materials industry landscape (e.g., key players, trends and end markets)
• Strong proficiency in modeling capability tools such as Python, R, Alteryx, Tableau, Excel
• Outstanding performance track record and career development
• Experience participating in or leading strategic projects, change management programs, commercial improvement programs and/or operational improvement projects is a plus
• Strong business and industry acumen
• Excellent problem solving skills
• Strong interpersonal and communication (oral and written) skills