Business Strategist and Management Thinker

Kevin P. Coyne teaches strategy at Harvard Business School and serves as senior external adviser to McKinsey & Company.

Kevin recently retired as a Senior Partner from McKinsey & Company to form a new firm, Kevin Coyne Partners, Inc., so that he could: (1) spend the majority of his time on his true passion -- advancing the state. of. the. art. of management -- particularly strategy, and (2) focus his client work on his two areas of distinctiveness, strategy and CEO / COO / Board counseling.

In 27 years of consulting, he has worked on a wide variety of issues in a broad cross-section of industries including:

• Corporate strategy: sale of company, businesses to acquire and divest, new sources of competitive advantage, portfolio strategy, M&A tactics, preparation of company for sale, franchising strategy and tactics
• Financial strategy: capital structure, debt levels, company and stock price valuation, investor relations, budgeting and planning processes
  
• Management agenda: developing an integrated agenda, setting management goals and objectives, program management
  
• Governance: Board structure, Board Committee structure and processes, relationship with government and policy oversight agencies, risk management
• Competitive Strategy: developing new value propositions and competitive advantages, influencing competitor behavior
• Operations and Cost Reduction: redesigning service operations, service process cost reduction, front-line selling effectiveness, administrative cost reduction, purchasing
• Marketing and sales: new product development, pricing, sales force effectiveness, go-to-market strategy, sales force organization and compensation, promotion and advertising
  
• Information Systems: IT project prioritization processes, organization of applications development function, CRM development
• Technology: assessments of the business potential of individual technologies, development of portfolio strategies, and organizing technology development and oversight functions
• Executive and Human Resources: dismissing senior executives, preparing executive reviews, succession planning, designing executive development programs, compensation
• Legal and Product Liability: litigation strategy, scientific strategy in support of litigation, preparation for debt default, depositions
• International Business, including work in: U.K., Germany, France, Netherlands, Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Trinidad , Ecuador, as well as assisting teams in over 30 countries
• Venture Capital: raising capital, writing business plans, assessing target companies for investment, structuring deals, deal negotiations, replacing management teams, serving on the Board of Directors, adjusting strategy as the situation changed, and selling companies

Kevin has worked one-on-one with over twenty-five different CEOs on one or more of the following subjects: setting the management agenda, corporate strategy, decisions to merge or sell the company, developing a new management agenda, top management organization (including decisions to hire and fire top executives), and integrated change programs.

Kevin is a prolific author on the subject of strategy and management:

• A Guide for the CEO Elect, by Kevin P. Coyne and Bobby S. Y. Rao, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 3, 2005, pp. 118-126
• Banking at Mid-Decade: The Ground Shifts, by Kevin P. Coyne, Lenny Mendonca, and Greg Wilson, McKinsey White Paper , April 2004
• Can Banks Grow Beyond M&A?, by Kevin P. Coyne, Lenny T. Mendonca, and Gregory Wilson, McKinsey Quarterly , Number 1, 2004, pp. 72-81
• Taking the Mystery Out of Investor Behavior, by Kevin P. Coyne and Jonathan W. Witter, Harvard Business Review, September 2002, pp.68-78
• What Makes Your Stock Price Go Up and Down?, by Kevin P. Coyne and Jonathan W. Witter, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 2, 2002, pp. 28-39
• Sustainable Competitive Advantage, by Kevin P. Coyne, The McKinsey Quarterly Anthologies on Strategy, 2000, pp. 31-34
• Bringing Discipline to Strategy, by Kevin P. Coyne and Somu Subramaniam, The McKinsey Quarterly Anthologies on Strategy, 2000, pp. 61-70
• Connectivity and Control in the Year 2000 and Beyond, by Kevin P. Coyne, Jeffrey Spar and Stephanie Spong, Harvard Business Review, July-August 1998, pp. 154-158
• The Competitive Dynamics of Network- Based Businesses, by Kevin P. Coyne and Renee Dye, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1998, pp. 99-109
• What is Strategy -- Commentary on Article by Michael Porter, by Kevin P. Coyne and Somu Subramaniam, Harvard Business Review, January-February 1997, pg. 152
• Is your Core Competence a Mirage?, by Kevin P. Coyne, Stephen J.D. Hall, and Patricia Gorman Clifford, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 1, 1997, pp. 40-54
• Bringing Discipline to Strategy, by Kevin P. Coyne and Somu Subramaniam, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 4, 1996, pp. 15-25
• Achieving a Sustainable Service Advantage, by Kevin P. Coyne, Journal of Business Strategy, January-February 1993, pp. 3-10
• Real Wealth, by Kevin P. Coyne and Roger Ferguson, McKinsey Quarterly, Number 4, 1991, pp. 69-80
• Beyond Service Fads: Strategies for the Real World, by Kevin P. Coyne, The McKinsey Quarterly Reprint Series: Service and Strategy, 1990, pp. 32-47
• Beyond Service Fads -- Meaningful Strategies for the Real World, by Kevin P. Coyne, Sloan Management Review, Summer 1989, pp. 69-76
• Sustainable Competitive Advantage, by Kevin P. Coyne, Advanced Management Report, Volume 7, Number 5, 1987, pp. 4-5
• Anatomy of Sustainable Competitive Advantage, by Kevin P. Coyne, McKinsey Quarterly, Spring 1986, pp. 50-65
• Sustainable Competitive Advantage: What It Is, What It Isn’t, by Kevin P. Coyne, Business Horizons, Volume 29, Number 1, January-February 1986, pp. 54-61

He is also the editor of the ground-breaking book - Strategic Dynamic Resources: Development, Diffusion, and Integration, edited by Michael A. Hitt, Patricia Gorman Clifford, Robert D. Nixon and Kevin P. Coyne, 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Kevin has delivered over 150 speeches to off-site and executive meetings for individual clients.

More information on Kevin is available at his website: www.kevincoynepartners.com >>