Frithjof is a senior partner in McKinsey’s Oslo office. He leads McKinsey’s Private Capital Practice in the Nordics and McKinsey’s global board services work, helping CEOs and boards of directors improve corporate governance.
He specializes in strategy, transformation, and governance for private-equity (PE) portfolio companies and resource-intensive industries. Frithjof advises executives on developing winning strategies amid the current technological and geopolitical landscape, accelerating transformational change, and implementing robust governance frameworks.
Examples of his recent client work include:
- helping a leading technology company shape a new strategic direction, redesign its organizational structure and corporate governance processes, and accelerate strategy delivery over a multiyear advisory relationship—enabling the company to massively outperform its peers in subsequent years
- supporting the transformation of a PE-backed portfolio company, helping assess its full potential, architect the transformation program, establish required performance management, and accelerate value capture—enabling it to quadruple in value over five years
To strengthen McKinsey’s advisory within corporate governance, Frithjof founded McKinsey Board Services in 2013, establishing it as a dedicated service line which he currently coleads globally. In this role, he has directed multiple board- and governance-related engagements and overseen McKinsey’s global surveys of governance best practices.
Frithjof speaks frequently on the topics of board governance and transformational change in the age of AI, both in Norway and internationally.
Published work
“How public-company boards can thrive by adopting private equity practices,” McKinsey & Company, July 2025
“How boards can tackle geopolitical risk,” McKinsey & Company, May 2025
“Better together: Three ways to boost board–CEO collaboration,” McKinsey & Company, September 2024
“The rising complexity of board directorship,” McKinsey & Company, March 2024
“Four essential questions for boards to ask about generative AI,” McKinsey & Company, July 2023
“An interview on building organizational resilience: A board-level priority in today’s challenging times,” McKinsey & Company, June 2023
“Five ways to increase your board’s long-term impact,” McKinsey & Company, July 2022
“The postpandemic board agenda: Redefining corporate resilience,” McKinsey & Company, August 2021
“The role of boards in fostering resilience,” McKinsey & Company, June 2021
“How boards have risen to the COVID-19 challenge, and what’s next,” McKinsey & Company, April 2021
“Boards and decision making,” McKinsey & Company, April 2021
“Boards and cybersecurity,” McKinsey & Company, February 2021
“Boards in the time of coronavirus,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“Boards of directors in the tunnel of the coronavirus crisis,” McKinsey & Company, April 2020
“How CFOs can better support board directors—and vice versa,” McKinsey & Company, March 2018
“Toward a value-creating board,” McKinsey & Company, February 2016
“Organizing to enable the shift from volume to value,” McKinsey & Company, December 2014
“Active ownership—requires more expertise,” State Ownership Report, Ministry of Trade and Industry, Norway, 2010
Past experience
Norwegian Armed Forces
Second lieutenant
Education
INSEAD
MBA
University of Oslo
JD, law
University of Oslo and University of Bergen
Studies in psychology, organizational psychology, and organization and leadership
Norwegian Armed Forces
Officer candidate school