For the 1st Find-Your-Role-Model Session in AY 2023 (71st session overall), we hosted Dr. Atsushi Sorita, a Partner of McKinsey & Company. 

After graduating from the University of Tokyo School of Medicine, Dr. Sorita completed his initial training at Okinawa Chubu Hospital, internal medicine residency at Mount Sinai Beth Israel and preventive medicine fellowship at Mayo Clinic in the U.S.A. He also received his Master of Public Health (MPH) from the University of Minnesota before returning to Japan and working for McKinsey & Company. He has served government agencies, pharmaceutical companies, and medical device manufacturers, providing analysis, business and marketing strategy support, and transformation support. He also serves as the Japan co-leader of the McKinsey Health Institute (MHI), a non-profit entity that aims to achieve the goal of extending life expectancy and improving quality of life in all regions, industries, and communities.

First, he talked about what a consulting job is like, especially focusing on what his clients’ needs are and what kinds of tasks he has tackled. The most impressive thing was that top-notch clients ask McKinsey & Company for help in order to solve the problem. Through his introduction of some projects, we realized that consulting was strongly related to our daily lives. 

In addition to that, he explained about McKinsey efforts to promote foster care as one of the examples of their contributions to our society. Here we learned that McKinsey also tackles social problems which are not widely known to the public following their Purpose: to help create positive, enduring change in the world. 

Lastly, he talked about his own vision and the meanings of working at McKinsey & Company. He got interested in healthcare systems when he was a university student and had kept thinking about what he could do to make them better. After that, he talked about the importance of thriving in the stimulating environment to keep up our motivation. 

Through both his talks and the Q&A session, we learned that approaching from “what” not “how” is important when it comes to solving problems or choosing something. It means that thinking about what we finally want to achieve instead of thinking how we should achieve them is much more important. Also, we learned the significance of keeping our own vision and finding value for what we do. 

This session was really precious because we don’t have many opportunities to see people who have succeeded in the consulting industry. In particular, the medical students who are curious about working in a non-medical field would have been stimulated by this session in which we got some new information about working at consulting companies, beliefs and visions of doctors working there and to gain new insights.