Episode 32: Dani D'Amico, Partner at McKinsey: Running, Risk Management and letting Authenticity Reign

Fiftyfaces Focus 2024 Pride Special

Dani D’Amico is a partner at McKinsey in their financial services practice. She has previously worked at Oliver Wyman in New York, where she was also a partner, and started her career in various consulting roles.
Our conversation starts with Dani’s early years in Italy and how she devised various distractions to outrun her authentic self – while she always felt she was a female trapped in a male body, she couldn’t at that time conceive how she could live authentically. As a marathon runner, she uses the analogy of trying to outrun the reality that was catching up with her, until she could outrun it no more.
Dani made the decision to transition after she already had had notable achievements in her career, and she is quick to note the position of privilege that that gave her. She notes that not all transgender people are so lucky to have the financial resources, access to medical care and career capital at the stage that they choose to transition, and this disparity reveals the inequity in play across the LGBTQ+ community that often gets overlooked.
Dani draws upon her risk management background to explain how she planned out her transition – including scenario analysis and decision trees. Once again we are told of how leadership and peer support was exceptional and surprised on the upside – a recurring theme throughout this series, when it comes to coming out at work.
Our fourth Pride series is supported by JPMorgan Chase. JPMorgan Chase has long been a supporter of equality in all forms, including for the LGBTQ+ community. Starting with the very first PRIDE business resource group in 1996, they recently strengthened their commitment by creating the Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs and a full-time, dedicated team to deliver on a global LGBTQ+ agenda.
The Office of LGBTQ+ Affairs partners closely with stakeholders across the firm to promote intersectionality and leverage its combined resources to deliver equity and inclusion for LGBTQ+ employees, clients, partners and communities, worldwide.