Blackstone hires former McKinsey partner

In a bid to further expand its presence into a wide range of industries, private equity giant The Blackstone Group announced the hiring of former McKinsey & Company partner David McVeigh, a broadly experienced private equity veteran, as executive director within the private equity portfolio management group.

As a partner at McKinsey, McVeigh led their North American Chemicals and Northeast Energy and Materials practices. He has worked with clients in the chemicals, pulp/paper, packaging, private equity, and industrial/consumer tools industries, specializing in corporate and business unit strategy, marketing and sales, innovation, and mergers and acquisitions.

“His extensive experience in implementing structural and fundamental changes in companies across multiple sectors will be an invaluable asset to our team,” said James Quella, senior managing director at Blackstone, in a statement.

McVeigh has also spoken at numerous conferences on nanotechnology and other fields, and also contributed articles on specialty chemicals and e-commerce to the 2001 book Value Creation: Strategies for the Chemical Industry.

Blackstone’s private equity group is currently investing its fifth general private equity fund with commitments of $15.6 billion—the largest private equity fund ever. The firm has raised more than $63 billion for alternative asset investing since its 1985 founding, including $30 billion for private equity investing alone. Most recently, Blackstone was involved in a $17.6 billion take-private deal with Austin, Texas-based Freescale Semiconductor, and in a long-running auction for UK-based United Biscuits.