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Blair Ciesil

Partner, Talent AttractionWashington DC

One of McKinsey’s global people leaders and coleader of talent attraction teams worldwide

Blair is a partner and co-leader of McKinsey’s global Talent Attraction function, which is at the heart of our firm’s dual mission to drive lasting and substantial impact with our clients and to attract, excite, and retain exceptional people.

Blair helps to deliver on that mission by sourcing, attracting, assessing, and cultivating distinctive and diverse talent across all roles, geographies and experience levels. In addition to driving McKinsey’s hiring strategies, Blair leads a global team of best-in-class recruitment professionals to create a distinctive candidate and stakeholder experience.

Across her nearly twenty-year career, Blair has innovated McKinsey’s end-to-end recruitment model – including opening new talent sources, founding Centers of Excellence to grow new talent attraction capabilities at scale, and modernizing our assessment process.

Building on her functional roots in communications and branding, Blair is one of the architects of our Talent Value Proposition to differentiate what makes a McKinsey career meaningful. A skilled writer and presenter, she active is across external channels, including serving as a keynote speaker at recruiting events, launching new at-scale candidate outreach such as podcasts, and being featured in top tier media.

Blair began her career at McKinsey as a consultant. After leaving for a couple of years to lead a brand transformation at another organization, she discovered her passion for managing (vs advising) and was thrilled to return to help lead our firm’s people strategy.

PUBLISHED WORK

Exceptional can come from anywhere,” McKinsey & Company, September 2023

Episode 237: McKinsey’s insight on talent acquisition,” Brandon Hall Group, January 2023

Blair Ciesil on developing skills outside of educational institutions,” WorkingNation, September 2022

EDUCATION

Northwestern University
Dual JD/MBA

Duke University
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