JERUSALEM - Reports bribing to Ukrainian oligarchs, helping China build internment camps, siphoning public funds in South Africa; 2018 was a hard year for McKinsey & Company in the press. However, Boredroom News has uncovered new documents that attest before the global management consulting company’s scandal in Saudi Arabia the firm had a history of similar activity in the region.
Certain Saudis who opposed government policies were identified on Twitter by the prestigious consulting agency and were soon arrested and imprisoned by authorities in a recent crackdown on citizens and journalists alike. Wile shocking to learn that an American company had enabled anti-democratic activity in a country with strained diplomatic ties, such work is not new to the region or McKinsey. Around 2000 years ago the firm had also been employed by the governor of Occupied Judea to quell perceived unrest.
Internal Powerpoint slides show that a prominent dissident at the time, Yeshua ben Yousef, a young cleric here in Jerusalem, had been identified by McKinsey consultants as a linchpin in the local government’s plan to maintain control of the region. The chief administrative official at the time, Pontius Pilate, had been initially wary of such extreme measures, those familiar with his office say. It had only been at the behest of Joseph Caiaphas, a McKinsey partner for the Middle East office, that Mr. Pilate had condemned Mr. ben Yousef to death.
Another former partner who was present at the sentencing, Marcellus Gallio, has confirmed the authenticity of the documents provided to Boredroom News. “McKinsey culture first and foremost is about thought leadership,” Mr. Gallio explains, “and Pilate had paid us good shekels to lead thoughts in his direction; we couldn’t have some other guy running around telling people that wealth at the expense of fellow humans isn’t the best way to conduct business.” Mr. Pilate’s governing organization, the Roman Empire, had been eager to optimize relations with Mr. ben Yousef’s faction of Hebrews in the area known as the People’s Front of Judea.
However, Roman diplomatic ties with the native deteriorated when Mr. ben Yousef and a core group of advisors began questions imperial policies such as denouncing the one true god and mixing different types of meat on the same plates. Throughout the McKinsey’s local office an anonymous memo suggested that the firm use a low level contractor to identify Mr. ben Yousef to the authorities and lure him into arrest. This transaction, financed through McKinsey coffers at a cost of around 30 silver pieces, is damning evidence against the global consulting firm. Within a few years of the incident, the Roman chief executive and god emperor, Flavius Vespasianus, initiated a rather hostile takeover of the Hebrew interests in the region; there is little doubt that the strategic advisory provided by McKinsey was a worthwhile investment for the firm
When reached for comment, Lucy Sullivan, a spokesperson for McKinsey, said that the firm could not offer specifics on the millennia-old engagement with the provincial Roman Empire. Ms. Sullivan has assured Boredroom News that “any loss of life is deeply regrettable… [however] there are credible reports that Yeshua ben Yousef was a known sorcerer and troublemaker and both Mr. Pilate as well as McKinsey & Company were ‘innocent of that man’s blood.’”