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Ramnath Balasubramanian

Senior PartnerNew York

Leads McKinsey’s work globally in private equity and digital, analytics, and technology in the insurance industry

Ramnath is a Senior Partner at McKinsey and is global co-leader of Life Insurance and Retirement industry practice. He works with life insurers, insurance brokers, asset managers, private capital firms and their portfolio companies on a range of topics including strategy, growth, enterprise value creation, technology and AI, M&A.

Prior to his current role leading the Life Insurance and Retirement practice, he led the build out of the global private capital- insurance domain to support private-capital sponsors in creating value in the broader insurance ecosystem including permanent capital-based models. He also helped establish and scale McKinsey's insurance risk and actuarial capabilities to serve insurers on capital- and balance-sheet-driven value creation.

Ramnath speaks regularly on the topics of Insurance and Private capital at various conferences and forums and co-host McKinsey’s annual Roundtable for 25+ North American Life and Retirement company CEOs.  His recent publications include “Global Life Insurance Report 2025: Growth and relevance in Life and beyond”’; “Private capital in Insurance 2.0 – Building the flywheel”; Why Private Equity sees Life and Annuities as an enticing form of Permanent capital", “Redefining the future of life and annuities distribution".

Ramnath completed his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad, where he received the President’s Gold Medal. He joined McKinsey in 2003 in the Mumbai office—where he led the insurance sector work—and has been based in New York since 2014.

PUBLISHED WORK

Global Insurance Report 2025: The pursuit of growth,” McKinsey & Company, November 2024

Private capital in insurance 2.0: Building the flywheel,” McKinsey & Company, June 2024

Anant Bhalla on the convergence of insurance, asset management,” McKinsey & Company, May 2024

Redefining the future of life insurance and annuities distribution,” McKinsey & Company, January 2024

Reimagining the life insurance model in 2023,” McKinsey & Company, December 2022

Global Insurance Report 2023: Reimagining life insurance, McKinsey & Company, November 2022

Unbundling value: How leading insurers identify competitive advantage,” McKinsey & Company, June 2022

Why private equity sees life and annuities as an enticing form of permanent capital,” McKinsey & Company, February 2022

The insurance trends private-equity investors should understand in 2021,” McKinsey & Company, August 2021

Insurance 2030—The impact of AI on the future of insurance,” McKinsey & Company, March 2021

Creating value in US insurance investing,” McKinsey & Company, November 2020

Rewriting the rules: Digital and AI-powered underwriting in life insurance,” McKinsey & Company, July 2020

Restore and reimagine: Digital and analytics imperatives for insurers,” McKinsey & Company, May 2020

Maximizing the value of in-force insurance amid enduring low returns,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020

The how of digital and analytics in insurance,” McKinsey & Company, November 2019

Raising returns on analytics investments in insurance,” McKinsey & Company, July 2017

The advance of analytics,” McKinsey & Company, March 2017

EDUCATION

Indian Institute of Management
MBA

University of Mumbai
BS, commerce