VIDEO | Caserta Founding CEO and Partner McKinsey & Company: Businesses Are Run By, With and On Data

(US and Canada) Joe Caserta, Partner at McKinsey & Company and founding CEO of Caserta, speaks with Ben Beshear, CEO and Private Wealth Advisor, LiveWell Capital - Northwestern Mutual, about the partnership with Mckinsey, Caserta’s business, the conjoining of technology and entrepreneurship, and the lessons learned in the process of building a company.

McKinsey was Caserta's first client when he launched 20 years ago and built their internal data warehouse. After working with McKinsey, Caserta felt an organic synergy. The organizational culture at McKinsey felt right, says Caserta. They have retained the culture for 20 years, making the merger a natural progression.

Caserta says he studied architecture before getting into data. If the architecture is incorrect while building a data platform, the data derived will be inaccurate. Therefore, he came up with hard-end architectural and engineering methods and applied them to data.

Caserta considers his team at the company as the SWAT team that comes in when the organization cannot afford to fail. Client solutions are challenging, and with the numerous data transformation initiatives happening worldwide, those challenges turn fascinating, says Caserta.

He adds that he has learned how to build and run a successful business. Caserta continues that the business side is structured and the solutions side is creative. He maintains that the biggest hurdle for start-up CEOs is when they think of themselves as a one-person show. The startup is not scalable if the business decisions are CEO-centric.

Caserta says this acquisition will level up the careers of his employees as McKinsey has a lot more to offer than Caserta. He says he wishes to be the best data consultancy in the world. The dignity that gravitas brings will help folks at Caserta deal with the complex issues of climate change, education, and health care.

Finally, he mentions that one of the biggest challenges consulting firms face is not understanding the importance of data. He states that one must be able to have a data conversation to understand business since all businesses are run by, with, and on data.