Garrison Lovely

Garrison Lovely is an American journalist, whistleblower, and former employee of McKinsey & Company.

Career

Coverage of McKinsey & Company Lovely began his career in 2017 as an intern at McKinsey, and later became a full-time employee. He was assigned to projects for ICE and Rikers Island and other clients— this experience became crucial for some of his work.

Lovely interviewed R.E.M. frontman Michael Stipe in 2021 for Jacobin, touching on topics like apartheid, democratic socialism, and Stipe's upbringing as a military brat.

In 2022, CBS Sunday Morning ran a segment on Walt Bogdanich and Michael Forsythe's book, When McKinsey Comes to Town, which covers the firm's recruiting practices, its sway over global industries and its impact on information sharing. Lovely served as a source for the book along with fellow McKinsey alum Erik Edstrom; both were interviewed as part of the segment. Many of Bogdanich and Forsythe's other sources remained anonymous. Lovely covered similar subject matter in The Nations September 2023 cover story "Confessions of a McKinsey Whistleblower", which was subsequently translated and republished in Le Monde Diplomatique.

Other publications Lovely has covered the environmental impact of pescatarian diets for Vox and the role of technological progress in metascience for BBC Future.

In 2025, The Nation announced its new publishing imprint, OR Books. Lovely was listed among the imprint's inaugural authors. His book, Obsolete, critiques the AI boom.

Criticism The National Review published an article in 2023 challenging Lovely's assessment of McKinsey, with particular attention to amorality in higher education systems, DEI and ESG corporate standards, and McKinsey's relationship with governments.