McKINSEY & COMPANY is a management consulting firm that helps leading corporations and organizations make distinctive, lasting, and substantial improvements in their performance. Over the past seven decades, the firm's primary objective has remained constant: to serve as an organization's most trusted external advisor on critical issues facing senior management. With consultants deployed from over eighty offices in more than forty countries, McKinsey advises companies on strategic, operational, organizational, financial, and technological issues. The firm has extensive experience in all major industry sectors and primary functional areas, as well as in-depth expertise in high-priority areas… for today's business leaders.Tim Koller is a partner in McKinsey's New York office. Tim has served clients in North America and Europe on corporate strategy and issues concerning capital markets, M&A transactions, and value-based management. He leads the firm's research activities in valuation and capital markets issues. He received his MBA from the University of Chicago.Marc Goedhart is an associate principal in McKinsey's Amsterdam office. Marc has served clients across Europe on portfolio restructuring, issues concerning capital markets, and M&A transactions. He received a PhD in finance from Erasmus University Rotterdam.David Wessels is an Adjunct Professor of Finance and director of executive education at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Named by BusinessWeek as one of America's top business school instructors, he teaches corporate valuation at the MBA and Executive MBA levels. David received his PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles.Jeffrey P. Lessard, CFA, is Associate Professor of Finance and Accounting at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Dr. Lessard received his PhD in finance from the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas. His primary scholarly interests are in the areas of corporate valuation, the influence of the board of directors on the creation of shareholder value, portfolio performance, and performance and presentation standards in the investment industry.