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Neel Gandhi

PartnerNew York

Advises leading organizations on how to strengthen their talent-management capabilities and build an HR function that operates as a true strategic partner and value driver for the business

Neel focuses on HR and talent strategy and on productivity. Passionate about the power of people, he specializes in advising clients on how HR and talent can create maximum value for their organizations. He regularly helps industry leaders and global organizations to improve their HR operations, talent-management capabilities, and efficiency, along with their broader business-support structures and processes. Neel also helps organizations maximize performance by establishing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce.

A seasoned adviser on mergers and acquisitions, Neel has led the HR planning and integration process for major transactions in the consumer-packaged-goods, pharmaceutical, healthcare, industrials, and financial-services industries.

Recent examples of his client work include the following:

  • advising a global consumer-packaged-goods company on how to boost productivity—the result was an operating-model shift to shared services and a 25 percent increase in productivity
  • helping a leading retailer create a global talent strategy
  • supporting a pharmacy-benefits-management company in an end-to-end HR transformation, including the design of a new HR operating model featuring shared services, followed by the detailed design and implementation of the new shared services organization and its processes
  • leading a productivity transformation for a global beverage company, including restructuring HR operations across more than 50 countries and rethinking sourcing strategy to increase productivity by over 30 percent

Neel also understands the dynamics and restrictions under which public-sector organizations operate. Examples of his work in this space include managing McKinsey’s role in a public–private effort to develop job creation policies at the federal level and helping a large public-sector agency design and implement an integrated workforce strategy.

Published work

Increasing your return on talent: The moves and metrics that matter,” McKinsey & Company, April 2024

HR’s new operating model,” McKinsey & Company, December 2022

Reimagining HR: Insights from people leaders,” McKinsey & Company, March 2022

When the grass is truly greener: How companies are retaining frontline talent,” blog entry, McKinsey & Company, January 2022

Battle for frontline talent: Five strategies to win,” blog entry, McKinsey & Company, November 2021

Rethinking total rewards for the post-COVID era,” blog entry, McKinsey & Company, June 2021

Expanding the economic pie in the Peach State, McKinsey & Company, May 2019

Human resources in the age of automation,” McKinsey & Company, January 2018

The critical importance of the HR business partner,” McKinsey & Company, January 2018

Driving value in talent processes using analytics,” McKinsey & Company, December 2017

The CEO’s guide to competing through HR,” McKinsey Quarterly, August 2017

Getting beyond bureaucracy in human resources,” McKinsey Quarterly, April 2015.

Past experience

Credit Suisse First Boston
Equity research analyst

City of New York
Investments officer

Education

Columbia Business School
MBA

Yale University
BA, economics and political science