Byron Auguste

Byron Auguste is a senior partner at McKinsey & Company, where he works primarily in the fields of high technology, information- and services-based businesses, education, and economic development. He also serves as director of McKinsey’s Social Sector Office, which works with institutions of the private, public, and nonprofit sectors worldwide on projects to improve education, health outcomes, and economic growth and opportunity. Based in Washington, D.C., since 2007, Byron spent 14 years in McKinsey’s Los Angeles office, where he was elected principal in 1999 and director in 2005. His private-sector client work focuses on helping technology, media, and services companies to achieve faster growth, greater productivity, and higher profitability, and on designing and building information and services businesses across a wide range of industries. He founded and led McKinsey’s High Tech Services Sector globally, has served on the global committees that elect and evaluate new partners, and leads the firm’s diversity initiative globally.

Byron is the co-founder and board chairman of Hope Street Group, a nationwide, nonpartisan, volunteer organization of professionals, executives, and entrepreneurs developing and promoting public policies to expand economic opportunity. He also serves on the board of directors of the Yale Corporation, Pacific Council on International Policy, and The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; the board of trustees of the Center for American Progress; is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations; and was appointed in 2010 to the White House Council for Community Solutions.

Byron is an active writer and public speaker on the impact of globalization, deregulation, and technology changes on industry structure, corporate strategy, and public policy at universities, industry roundtables, and public policy forums. He has been published or quoted in the McKinsey Quarterly, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Los Angeles Times, The Boston Globe, Global Telecom Business, The Economist, New Perspectives Quarterly, National Public Radio, and N.TV in Germany. He co-authored "A Revolution in Interaction" (1997), a seminal analysis of the emerging new economy; "What's So New About Globalization?" (1998), a widely cited synthesis of global economic trends and their implications; "The Other Side of Outsourcing" (2001), an analysis of success factors in developing, marketing, and selling outsourced services; and “The Right Services Strategy for Product Companies” (2006). Most recently, Byron has co-authored several reports on education and economic development, including "The Economic Impact of the Achievement Gap in America's Schools," "Changing the Fortunes of America's Workforce," "Closing the Talent Gap: Attracting and Retaining Top Third Graduates to Careers in Teaching," "Growth and Renewal in the US: Retooling America's Economic Engine," and a forthcoming report from McKinsey's Global Institute on the U.S. labor market.

Byron received a B.A. in economics and political science summa cum laude from Yale University, where he was chosen as a Truman Scholar, and an M.Phil. and D.Phil. in economics from Oxford University, where he was a Marshall Scholar. Before joining McKinsey & Company in 1993, Byron worked as an economist, in international trade, finance, and economic development, at the African Development Bank, at LMC International, and at Oxford University’s Foreign Service Program for mid-career diplomats. He authored The Economics of International Payments Unions and Clearing Houses, published by MacMillan Press in 1997.