McKinsey Quarterly 2023 Number 1

José Andrés: Yes, my brain is totally messed up on that. But one goes with the other. I’m also a cook who enjoys great meals and great wine. But I’m 53. I feel I still have 30, 35 good, strong years in me. Mature years. I think I’ll do a lot. But now, I’m only trying to understand how I can use my time more wisely. I feel like every time I go into anything, in a way, maybe I’m trying to gain my own credibility. Maybe in ten or 20 years, I could be a bigger voice on how we are going to end hunger in the world. But it’s not going be done without the recipes we are working on writing now. José Andrés is the cofounder and CEO of José Andrés Group and the founder of World Central Kitchen. Katy McLaughlin is the deputy editor of McKinsey Quarterly and a senior editor in McKinsey’s Southern California office. Comments and opinions expressed by interviewees are their own and do not represent or reflect the opinions, policies, or positions of McKinsey & Company or have its endorsement.

José Andrés: I get more than stressed; I would say I get frustrated when things don’t happen. And when I see that certain things become more complicated than they have to be, I get anxious. We could be eradicating hunger in America, and we could be eradicating hunger in the world. I think food banks are needed, but they highly need to be reinvented. People shouldn’t be waiting in a car for hours to get a bag of food. There needs to be another way that gives dig nity to people and, in the process, helps create riches in the poor neighborhoods where they live. - We don’t even know how much big governments in every rich country or the UN dedicate to eradicating hunger. I have a feeling there’s a lot of wasted money. One of the shortfalls of the democracies that we are living in today is over promising and underdelivering. We need to start underpromising and overdelivering. - Katy McLaughlin: You sound so passionate about your nonprofit work. But Sam Bakhshandehpour tells me you’re still the final word on every recipe, design, and detail–even where the chairs are set up in a restaurant. How do you stay engaged on the business side?

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‘It’s important to bring the spirit of emergencies to the long term’

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