Speaker details

Biography

Pierre Gentin is the Chief Legal Officer of McKinsey & Company. He leads the Legal and Public Affairs functions and advises the Firm’s management team and board. Pierre is the first non-consultant elected a Senior Partner in McKinsey’s history. In 2022, The Financial Times named him one of the top 20 general counsel worldwide. Pierre joined McKinsey in 2019 with nearly 30 years’ experience in business, law, government and academia. He was a Partner in the law firm of Cahill Gordon & Reindel and spent nearly two decades in financial services at Credit Suisse, where his roles including Managing Director and Global Head of Litigation, Investigations and Employment Law, General Counsel for the Global Research Division, and Head of Reputational Risk for the Americas. Pierre also served in the U.S. Department of Justice as an Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York. He has been recognized as a leading lawyer by Bloomberg, The American Lawyer, Corporate Counsel, The Brunswick Review, Law360, LawDragon, The Legal 500, and others. He regularly advises General Counsel and other executives on the design and management of corporate functions. Pierre was a Young Global Leader of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and he has served on the WEF’s Global Agenda Councils on Faith, Values in Decision-Making, and the Role of Business. He is a Trustee of the Practicing Law Institute, the Touro Synagogue Foundation, and Princeton University’s Center for Public Policy and Finance. He served on the board of Columbia Law School’s Center for Israeli Legal Studies, chaired the board of Princeton University’s Center for Jewish Life, and is a recipient of the Anti-Defamation League’s Human Relations Award. Pierre taught law as Adjunct Professor at Fordham University, business ethics as Lecturer at the Wharton School of Business, and he co-edited a book on alternative dispute resolution in the financial services sector. During the COVID lockdown, he taught a virtual course exploring the relationship between American poetry, religious thought, and blues music. In the Spring of 2023, he will serve as “Leader in Residence” in the Organizational Character and Leadership Initiative at Columbia Law School. Pierre graduated from Princeton University, magna cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, and received a law degree from Columbia University.