An employee-run, multi-day backpacking trip has become a hot ticket at McKinsey

Alex Harman was connected the past agelong of his trek to the apical of Mount Kilimanjaro successful Tanzania erstwhile he stopped connected a steep portion of the mountain. He had gone to furniture astatine 3 p.m. the time earlier and group his siren for midnight to commencement hiking early.

Now the sun was coming up, truthful he stopped to person a snack and return successful the view, alongside astir 30 of his McKinsey colleagues, earlier continuing connected to the summit.

"The apical was great," he said, "but that infinitesimal location wherever we each stopped and conscionable watched the sunrise was very cool."

Harman, an AI merchandise head astatine McKinsey based successful London, co-founded Mind Over Mountains, an employee-run inaugural that gathers colleagues from astir the world for a multi-day backpacking trip while raising money for charity.

It started pinch the Kilimanjaro travel successful 2023 and continued pinch astir 65 colleagues connected a trek done Patagonia successful 2025. This year, 100 McKinsey labor are heading to the Peaks of the Balkans successful September for an eight-day hike spanning astir 62 miles, aliases 100 km, each coinciding pinch the elite guidance consulting firm's 100-year anniversary.

The trips bring together McKinsey colleagues of each ages, acquisition levels, and roles, ranging from senior partners to entry-level analysts. Anyone from the firm's 40,000-person workforce tin motion up. They are not charismatic McKinsey retreats.

Employees shape them pinch the thief of hired circuit vendors and salary the afloat costs to attend. The Balkans travel will costs each attendee astir $1,000, excluding airfare. No anterior backpacking acquisition is required, and spots are disposable connected a first-come, first-served basis, pinch request increasing each year.

"We filled 100 spaces successful 3 hours," Harman said of the coming Balkans trip, adding they were "pretty blown distant by the participation" and had to create a agelong waitlist.

For participants, the entreaty is not conscionable the destination. They described the treks arsenic a uncommon chance to afloat disconnect from work, walk hours pinch colleagues they mightiness different cognize only done Zoom aliases email, and temporarily time off agency dynamics behind.

Seniority doesn't matter connected the trail

Coordinating a backpacking travel for 100 group is nary mini task. Harman said a awesome woody of activity goes into vetting and hiring section guides and vendors, adding he felt a "great woody of pressure" readying the Balkans trip. Organizing a play for friends is 1 thing, he said, but if you scheme a travel for 100 McKinsey employees, "they'll announcement everything, and they'll want it a definite way."

While connected the trip, the days typically dwell of breakfast, hiking — which includes immoderate solo clip arsenic good arsenic stepping and talking pinch personification caller — and a group meal astatine the campsite.

"When you first locomotion adjacent to someone, you person nary thought what they do," Ting Cui, a main merchandise head successful London who went connected the Patagonia trip, told Business Insider. "There's nary measurement to cognize if they're a partner aliases if they're a business analyst. And evidently connected the trail, it doesn't really matter wherever your seniority is."

Cui, who is besides going to the Balkans, said she went into Patagonia not knowing the immense mostly of the group connected the trip, but that everyone gelled smoothly, which she thinks is simply a tribute to McKinsey's civilization crossed its offices. She went distant from the travel pinch lasting friendships. One workfellow successful New York who she bonded pinch connected the travel ended up spending Christmas pinch her family.

Ricardo Moya Quiroga, a partner and COO counsellor successful McKinsey's Berlin office, besides went connected the Patagonia hike past twelvemonth and is heading to the Balkans successful September. He said he initially signed up to enslaved pinch McKinsey colleagues, raise money for charity, and for a individual detox. He turned disconnected his telephone and took a break from activity and emails for the afloat 5 days.

"I was asking myself who I am, and the reply that came is: 'I americium a grandpa, I americium a husband, and I americium a son.' Very clearly. It came spontaneously," he said, describing a infinitesimal connected the travel erstwhile he decided to constitute a missive to himself. Since returning, he said he's been overmuch much conscious of really he spends his clip and said it was 1 of his top takeaways from the experience, on pinch connecting pinch colleagues and raising money for charity.

The trips tin beryllium hard, but they're worthy it

The trips tin beryllium physically challenging, and things don't ever spell precisely according to plan. In Patagonia, Cui said 1 subordinate wounded his ankle and was limping toward the extremity of the day, but colleagues who had only precocious met him stepped up and helped him scope camp.

On the Kilimanjaro trek, 1 of Harman's cofounders unexpectedly sewage blisters successful a brace of boots that he'd hiked successful plentifulness of times before. He borrowed Harman's Crocs and hiked successful them up steep and sketchy terrain for a mates of days earlier yet deciding to trim the apical portion of his hiking boots off, the portion that was causing the blisters, and deterioration those for the remainder of the way.

Harman said that while the hiking itself is rewarding, raising money for bully causes and connecting pinch group astatine activity connected a different level make the trips worthwhile. For the 2025 Patagonia trip, the group raised complete $115,000 for intelligence wellness charities and hopes to raise different six-figure sum this year.

He said readying the trips has besides been rewarding from an entrepreneurial perspective, which to him intends "go do immoderate cool worldly that nary 1 asked you to do." He hopes the trips continue, moreover if he leaves McKinsey, and thinks others who are willing should commencement thing akin astatine their companies, too.

"There will ever beryllium a bunch of firm reddish tape. There will ever beryllium group who are worried," he said, adding that arsenic agelong arsenic your institution appreciates an entrepreneurial drive, anyone could do it.

"No one's going to inquire you to spell do this," he said. "So conscionable spell do it and spot really it lands."