FIVE FACTS THAT MAKE AN IMPACT: Scott Blackburn Mixes Government and Private Sector Experience to Carve Career as Prominent Problem Solver

On Sept. 23, the Whitman School welcomed Scott Blackburn, senior partner, McKinsey & Company, as part of its ongoing IMPACT Executive Leadership Speaker Series. The series brings in top executives for a fireside chat with Whitman leadership and a Q/A with students to share information on career paths, obstacles and successes, as well as insight into how students can differentiate themselves with the skillsets companies are looking for in a new hire.
A graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard Business School, Blackburn has a career that incorporates a military background with 20 years of large-scale performance and cultural transformations crisscrossing government and Fortune 500 companies.
After four years in the U.S. Army as a captain, Blackburn was first hired by the NFL’s Cleveland Browns but soon moved on to a position as an associate at McKinsey & Company, a global strategy and management consulting firm. A few years after making partner at McKinsey, pulled by his commitment to veterans, however, Blackburn then took another job— and a sizable pay cut—to again serve his country by leading a significant overhaul of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) as chief transformation officer and later interim VA deputy secretary and chief information officer.
“I had a chance to give back and do something truly meaningful for veterans,” he says, noting he comes from a five-generation military family. “I knew nothing about working in government, but the private sector trained me with the skills I needed. It was the best thing I could have ever done at the time.”
In 2018, he returned to McKinsey with yet another perspective on problem-solving learned while working in government. Today, he is a senior partner and the chairman of McKinsey U.S. government, serving federal, state, social-sector and private-sector clients. But he remains active in the veterans’ community, working with more than two dozen nonprofits in a pro bono capacity.
At the IMPACT Series event, Blackburn spoke with Syracuse University Vice Chancellor and Whitman Executive Dean J. Michael Haynie, telling his story and offering five pieces of advice to a student-packed audience.
Drive, grit and tenacity will help you go far.
We, at McKinsey, look for two things in our people. One is raw material and talent from those who are great thinkers and problem-solvers willing to tear something apart to find a solution and make the complicated simple. Another is leaders and entrepreneurs with drive, grit and the tenacity to not give up in the face of obstacles but instead keep a great attitude and find other ways to adapt to challenging situations. We’re not looking for the perfect person. We’re looking for someone coachable who we will enjoy investing in and will become a great teammate.
Share your life experiences, and let people know who you really are.
Those with a military background tend not to talk about themselves, so I had to become more comfortable doing that over time. People want to know about your life experiences. Being interesting and telling your stories are how you connect with people. Now, I talk about working for the Cleveland Browns, my time in the military—or even the silver medal my daughter recently won at the U.S. Nationals in figure skating. These things make you more memorable—and just might lead to a phone call or a job offer down the road.
A mentor can be more than just one person.
Mentors are an important part of any business because you need those you can go to for counsel. That might be a supervisor who helps you learn something you do not know or someone who gives you tough love and feedback. I was lucky in that some of my mentors were people who believed in me more than I believed in myself. A mentor doesn’t have to be just one person. I’ve had 12 or 15 great mentors and have taken a little piece of each of them with me to better myself throughout my career.
Your job is to make someone else successful.
At McKinsey, I had the opportunity to consult with a steel company in the Midwest with a client who believed he was changing the world building cars and bridges, etc. But I had no interest in steel at the time. However, we became friends, and his infatuation with the steel business made me want him to be successful. This company should have gone bankrupt, but we worked very hard to make this guy a success by fighting through tough times together. The company emerged as an industry leader that is still thriving today. I take a lot of pride in helping to create that success for him, and we are still serving that client.
Have a North star and dream BIG.
Many of you are not going to have any idea what you want to do when you leave the Whitman School, but have a North star to work towards. Realize you’re going to have many chapters in your career, and your North star will evolve over time, so it’s important to be flexible. But make sure your dream is BIG—be the CEO, the president, the founder of your own company—and work hard to achieve it.