On Wall Street, the cult of McKinsey continues to flourish. Long considered the management consultancy of choice by bankers and brokers, McKinsey's image has been further burnished in recent years by the success of several ex-employees who have made the leap to the securities industry. Prominent among them are Phil Purcell, chairman and CEO of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter and Larry Linden, a partner at Goldman Sachs.
To their names, now add a third: John Cecil, a former McKinsey director who resigned in 1994 to become chief administrative officer of Lehman Brothers. Taking the reins of a deeply troubled institution, Cecil has helped engineer one of Wall Street's more dramatic turnrounds.
Over the past 12 months, Lehman's share price has surged nearly 150%; it now trades at around $77. In March, Lehman reported first-quarter profits of $1.44 a share, a 24% gain from a year ago. During the same period, the firm's return on equity rose from a dismal 4% to 17%. It has been a robust performance across the board; in the first quarter, Lehman even managed to top the league table for domestic M&A business, not considered one of its strong points.