This is a profile image of Tom Kilroy

Tom Kilroy

Senior PartnerChicago

Leads McKinsey’s practice area for grocery, drug and mass retail.

Tom serves clients primarily in the retail sector, where he has partnered on strategy and growth transformations with leading retailers in the US, Canada and Mexico markets. Prior to his current role, Tom led McKinsey’s merchandising practice area and was Managing Partner for the Chicago office.

Examples of recent client work include:

  • Led a holistic cost transformation program at a leading North America grocer, delivering several hundred basis points of SG&A leverage
  • Counseled a leading multi-category retailer on their GenAI/automation and workforce re-training journey, mapping out the potential people and cost impacts of automation use cases and building an implementation roadmap for the business
  • Served as interim Merchandising leader for a specialty retailer, moving categories with more than $1 billion in annual sales from decline to growth
  • Developed a multichannel marketing strategy for a hardlines retailer, including launch of personalized marketing campaigns with 8x response rate relative to historic investments

Tom is a member of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago and is on the board of World Business Chicago. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association.

Tom holds a master of business administration degree from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, where he was designated a Tuck Scholar in 2005. He received a bachelor of arts, summa cum laude, from the University of Notre Dame in 1999.

Published work

Four ways to achieve pricing excellence in retail marketplaces,” McKinsey & Company, August 2022

Automation in retail: An executive overview for getting ready,” McKinsey & Company, May 2019

Lessons from Latin America’s leading consumer-goods companies,” McKinsey & Company, June 2016

“A mixed reception for global grocers,” McKinsey Quarterly, 2016 Number 1

Modern grocery and the emerging-market consumer: A complicated courtship,” McKinsey & Company, August 2015

Pricing in retail: Setting strategy,” McKinsey & Company, April 2015

Education

Tuck School of Business
MBA

University of Notre Dame
BA, program of liberal studies