This is a profile image of Stephan Zimmermann

Stephan Zimmermann

Senior PartnerBay Area

Helps companies with substantial online operations find Internet-based consumer insights, manage the customer life cycle, and stay ahead of digital advertising trends

Stephan leads our Digital Analytics group in the Americas, helping executives translate customer data into successful business strategy. With extensive experience enhancing online engagement, Stephan works with companies that face a driving imperative to build and sustain customer relationships on digital platforms—including Internet companies, digital advertising firms, retailers, and media outlets.

With his focus on using data to drive decisions, Stephan has contributed to the development of a number of analytical resources, including a tool to evaluate web and mobile performance, an e-commerce pricing engine, and a system for customer life cycle management that encourages customer repurchases and cross-shopping. He also helped develop our capabilities in design-to-value work, honing approaches for creating new products and services that deliver strong value to customers.

Examples of his work:

  • optimizing the multichannel customer engagement model for a major e-commerce retailer
  • improving digital engagement for a leading sports league
  • designing a digital advertising strategy for a leading mobile video provider, including setting targeted advertising models and revenue approaches
  • supporting a large media company in reviewing acquisition targets, building a digital advertising business strategy and acquisition road map, and driving post-merger integration
  • developing a growth strategy for a digital advertising player, identifying market trends and building new products to capture those trends

Before joining McKinsey, Stephan worked as the vice president of product development for an infrastructure-software company in New York, and he conducted semiconductor research at the Spanish Research Council in Madrid. He has been a speaker at the policy forum at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research and at the Telecom Council's Mobile Forum.

Published work

Power forward: Five make-or-break truths about next-gen e-commerce,” McKinsey & Company, October 2024

Direct-to-consumer e-commerce in appliances: A strategic growth opportunity,” McKinsey & Company, August 2023

Ready for prime time? The state of live commerce,” McKinsey & Company, July 2023

“Unraveling the web: A new way to understand the online customer,” McKinsey & Company, May 2013

Past experience

Thor Industries
Vice president of product development

Education

Columbia Business School
MBA

Technical University of Munich
MS, applied physics