Simon Hobbs You describe yourself as an analytical 
person. How would you describe your leadership style? 


Nancy McKinstry I’m a big believer that a leader must 
have a clear vision for the business. You must also be able to build a strong team: it’s 
not about you personally but the people you surround yourself with. Finally, you need to have really strong communications. 


SH And how do you create strong 
communications? 


NM The only way to drive forward a successful organisation is to create an environment where people feel comfortable enough to raise difficult issues. When I became CEO in 2003, I toured the operation and went to Germany where people are very respectful of hierarchy. We had the ‘town hall meeting’ and were trying to get people to ask questions, but the only two brave souls who would ask questions were retiring that year. So now I go out often enough that I get myself into situations where people feel very comfortable asking questions. 


SH You once said that you preferred to employ people who had overcome adversity, who had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps. Why is that? 


NM I think that to be a leader in our industry’s environment, which is highly volatile, you need to be able to adjust; to learn from mistakes. I have found that people who have had to come up from adversity, or who have had to dust themselves off and get back in the game, have that kind of nimble tenacity that drives them forward. 


SH And would that describe you? 


NM Yes. I try very hard to be reflective. Everybody is now so connected — telephones, Blackberries, computers — that we all need a period when we say, “Ok, turn off everything”.


SH You were born in 1959 in a college town in Connecticut, with a school teacher mother and a banker father, the youngest of four. You learned to read at four and by the age of six, had read The Little Engine That Could 
150 times. Would you say this children’s book, which teachers optimism and hard work, is a metaphor for the American dream? 


NM I just loved it and I kept reading it over and over again. I think it influenced my sense that tenacity is important. 


SH Why did you decide to do an MBA. 


NM My first job out of college was in telecommunications, an industry that was undergoing a lot of transformation. I decided that I wanted to know more about business, so I went to Columbia and took two years off to do my MBA. That was the start of 
my career path into business. Out of that, I became a consultant for Booz Allen Hamilton for seven years. That was 
a phenomenal training ground because although you’re young you’re dealing with very senior people and are constantly thrown into new contexts and industries. 


SH And while you were there, how did you feel about the company’s “up or out” policy, by which you 
have to bring in enough business to be promoted every two years? 


NM It got me very comfortable with getting and giving feedback. In order to progress over a career, you need to be comfortable in performance assessment. 


SH And what advice would you give someone in the early stages of a career? 


NM Particularly for a woman or someone 
in the ‘diversity’ category, it’s very important that you are able to demonstrate 
that you achieve results and you can do that in something like sales. If you go into something 
a little softer, such as advertising, that’s a little harder to demonstrate. 


NM The previous CEO was retiring so there was a natural succession. The board recognised that they needed to have someone who knew the business. I often describe myself as an ‘insider-outsider’, meaning 
that I knew the industry, the business, what 
had to happen to be successful; however, I was an outsider in that I was the first non-Dutch CEO of Wolters Kluwer and also a female. This allowed me to create a bridge and a platform 
for rapid change. 


SH What was your strategy for restructuring the company? 


NM The first thing to do was to get great leaders and the right team in place. The second thing was to do what I call a lot of ‘heavy lifting’ in the back office, creating common systems. Thirdly, we went out and talked to our customers about how we could improve our 
existing products and figure out what new products to build. 


SH What is the process you go through to achieve all those things simultaneously? 


NM I’m a big believer in ‘create the plan 
and then you work the plan’. We spent 
a lot of time creating plan, looking at how to restructure the business from a cost perspective and where to invest in technology and 
how to build better office systems. Then we worked it out step by step and assigned roles and responsibilities.

SH You have said that you could not generate a single culture for problem-solving, that Europe is like leading a jazz band. What was your learning curve like in Europe? 


NM Yes, I have learned along the way. One of the things that I have gotten better at is to really listen to people, especially when English is not their first language.

SH Many people were initially dubious about your restructure plan. What have you learned about believing in a plan of which others are sceptical? 


NM I recognise that for the external market to believe in a plan, you have to demonstrate results. We said, this is our team and this is how you are going to measure our success. 


SH And what did you learn about how to get revenues moving? 


NM Customer, customer, customer. I go out and see customers as much as possible. It was getting everyone in the organisation to listen to their customers. It became less about what the product did and more about how the customers were using the product. 


SH And what has taught you the most? 


NM Two things: one, to learn from your 
mistakes and two, that you can get better at things.

Curriculum 
vitae

Nancy McKinstry

Born: Connecticut, USA, 1959


Education: MBA (Finance & Marketing) from Columbia University, a Bachelor’s degree in economics (Phi Beta Kappa) and an honorary Doctor of Laws, both from University of Rhode Island


Career: Early management positions with Booz Allen Hamilton, an international management-consulting firm, focusing on assignments in the media and technology industries


1996—1999: President/CEO of CCH Legal Information Services (now part of Wolters Kluwer’s Corporate and Financial Services division)


1999: Rejoined Wolters Kluwer to head North American operations


2001: Member of the Executive Board of Wolters Kluwer


2003: Chief excutive and chairman of the Executive Board of Wolters Kluwer, which publishes journals in the medical, legal 
and accounting spheres


Currently on the boards of directors of telecom supplier Ericsson, the American Chamber of Commerce in the Netherlands, and TiasNimbas Business School, among others. Member of the Advisory Council of the Amsterdam Institute of Finance, the Dutch Advisory Council of INSEAD, the Advisory Board for the University of Rhode Island, and the Board of Overseers of 
Columbia Business School.