This past September, YLD entered a new era with the appointment of José Carluccio as the consultancy’s new Chief Executive Officer.
José joins after fifteen years at McKinsey & Company, where he progressed from associate to partner, advising clients and shaping business strategies across the US, Latin America, and Europe.
Now, a few weeks into his tenure, he sat down with Christine Lasa, Content and Community Lead, to reflect on his transition, his perspective on where our industry is heading, and the leadership style he is bringing to the helm of YLD.
What's your background, and what path led you to YLD?
I come from an engineering background, and worked at McKinsey & Company for 15 years. The interesting part is that, within a single company, I worked with clients across three different regions, the United States, Latin America and Europe, and across every industry in the commercial function.
Within the commercial function, I worked on various focus areas, ranging from customer loyalty, pricing and channel management, to customer experience, and many others. What's interesting is that at McKinsey, I was what's called a 'functional profile,' someone who navigates different industries. I worked in retail, insurance, banking, and travel and logistics, and then advanced industries, or B2B settings.
Ten of those years were based out of Brazil, and the last five out of Portugal.
What have been the highlights of your career so far?
There are two standouts for me. From an analytical, and problem-solving focused angle, the first standout is that I was involved in complex projects across many clients, where we helped solve the most challenging problems.
At McKinsey there is a phrase people use: “only McKinsey can do it.” We were brought in on problems a client had been unable to solve with their own teams, and I led those teams to solutions that delivered tangible, measurable value.
For example, how to optimise beverage pricing across different channels and seasons, or how to structure ticket costs for an airline. The problems were varied, and challenging, from customer retention through loyalty tactics, expanding the elasticity of commercial activities, increasing ROI or driving digital engagement.
The other highlight is more personal and focused on building relationships. I went from someone junior and early in my career, to someone experienced enough to handle CEO conversations and CEO coaching. I came in without knowing how to present in a senior meeting, and ended up walking into steering committees ahead of time to tell a CEO directly: your team is pushing back on this, and the tradeoff for you and your company shareholders is the following. Then observe in the meeting how the CEO and their team worked it out. This happened on multiple occasions and it still takes a lot of time to build that kind of relationship. That's the second highlight, learning how to manage the way a CEO handles their executive team.
What's a project you've worked on that you're particularly proud of?
There was a client of ours, a big retailer, that had an issue with customer loyalty. Their own customer's data was actually in the hands of a third party. We came in and were very frank in telling them they needed to do things differently. They said, okay, let's think it through together. We did, and we landed on a different route, a four-year partnership to build their own loyalty programme. Understandably, they were nervous. There was a big technology component to it. But we decided to jump in together.
Two months of strategy, then nine months building the programme into their technology stack. Over the next three years, we scaled it from zero customers to four million, it's close to five million today. And we were hands-on the whole way through: helping them select the right partners, develop their own team, build out the marketing stack and tactics, and make sure we were measuring what actually mattered, the active customers we'd reached at the end.
As a McKinsey partner, you have a lot of different avenues you can take in your career. Why YLD?
The first reason is that YLD looks for excellence, and doesn't just do what a client asks. They'll tell a client no, respectfully, as and when needed, and won't do it just for the money. That's a bit like what we did at McKinsey: making sure the work drives impact, not just a commercial outcome, a relationship, or money in the bank.
The second reason is the scale, YLD is a mid-sized firm, it is well established and knows its market but there is significant opportunity to scale in a fast moving segment.
The third reason is the team. I got to know Fabio (CTO), Julie (COO) and Nuno (Founder) thoroughly through the process, over a few months; it quickly became clear that we had a shared vision for the future and that we would enjoy working together.
That's what convinced me to join YLD, because we were, and still are, very aligned on where we want to take the company. But most importantly, it's the equity in our methodologies and the distinctiveness of our delivery that we need.
How do you feel about the technology industry right now, and where it's heading?
I'm really excited about where it’s heading. AI is a multiplier, whether that's of the capabilities of a software engineer, a consultant, or any process we run day to day, making things faster, more efficient, higher quality. That means better returns on any technology investment, and when you compare that against other types of investment a business can make, technology ones will be better-off vs the non-AI era.
That's what makes this such a powerful moment. Increased efficiency isn't reducing investment, it's driving more of it. Companies with vision aren't cutting back, they're exploring new capabilities. That's the beauty of this moment, and it's what makes it such an interesting place to be: helping clients navigate the immense possibilities that AI is unlocking.
I know some people are worried that too much AI, too much productivity will cost jobs. But the data doesn't support that. AI isn't here to take jobs, it's here to get more out of what we do, and to redirect people toward other work, not cut them off.
What kind of leader has inspired you through your career?
I've always been inspired by leaders who care about people at work, not just what they produce at work. What's their family like, their friends, their interests? Who are they outside the job? At McKinsey, that's not always the norm, so when I found leaders who were open about that, who cared as much about making others successful as a whole person, not just as an individual doing a task, it stood out to me.
That's the kind of leader I've tried to be myself, telling people the truth, and helping them build a career that fits alongside the rest of their life.
How do you view the role of a leader in a business like YLD?
I think the role of a leader comes in three parts. The first is making sure we give clarity on where we're heading and why. The next would be staying open to the market, and listening to what's going on. The last part would be making sure we balance the client market and the talent market, ensuring we deliver what we deliver in a sustainable way, without burning out our teams.
Let's say a client tells us, ‘I'll pay you more, but the team needs to work twelve hours straight, or over the weekend’. We just say no, as that's not part of how we work; the client market is as important as the talent market.
Being open is equally important. One of the things I liked at McKinsey, and something I'd like to bring to YLD, is that it's a genuinely non-hierarchical firm when it comes to problem-solving, being non-theoretical in approach, and making sure everybody feels I'm approachable.
I can't just tell people they can talk to me, they need to feel it. So it's part of my job to show myself as open, so people can tell me whatever they think.
