Home
The Findings

The Findings

West Virginia University and the West Virginia Department of Commerce commissioned McKinsey & Company, a global management consulting firm, to identify short-term, larger-scale projects to help boost West Virginia's economic development and provide a strategic assessment of:

Economic diversification opportunities
West Virginia's competitive edge
And the best method for implementation of key recommendations

To help capture the opportunities identified by McKinsey & Company, West Virginia University and the West Virginia Department of Commerce invited Marshall University to participate and, together, created "West Virginia Forward." Thus, a collaborative movement was born to turn McKinsey & Company's recommendations - which can be found in the Summary of Findings - into multidisciplinary action to benefit West Virginia's economy.

The Summary of Findings serves as a blueprint to help West Virginia Forward collaborators advance the state.

View WV Forward Summary of Findings

mckinsey & company scope of work

McKinsey & Company has crafted a distilled Summary of Findings from months of work, serving to spot new issues, dig beneath existing challenges, and highlight the importance of ongoing work.

The consulting firm led a fact-based process to unite experts from across West Virginia and around the world who had a deep awareness of the state's unique identity. Interviews with industry leaders, as well as with state partners, analyzed and distinguished areas of strength and opportunity for future growth. A working group met weekly with McKinsey & Company's team to align thinking on the most optimistic solutions for one West Virginia.

The summary of findings was not meant to be a lengthy, comprehensive report with silver bullet solutions. Rather, the product was designed to point the conversation through a data-driven, nonpartisan assessment of new recommendations, fresh perspectives, and national trends.

However, there is no substitute for including those with front line intel to craft solutions together. True collaboration and alignment are the keys to moving West Virginia forward into economic prosperity and revitalization.