(Bloomberg) -- A top China rainmaker at McKinsey & Co. is leaving the global consulting firm after more than three decades, at a time when it’s reshuffling senior leadership ranks to adapt to a shifting business and political landscape. 

Lola Woetzel, a Shanghai-based senior partner, is retiring soon, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the information is private. She is also a director of the McKinsey Global Institute, the firm’s business and economics research arm, and opened the consultancy’s office in Shanghai in 1995. 

A few dozen of McKinsey’s roughly 700 senior partners have left throughout the past year, as it elects new candidates, according to one of the people. 

Woetzel’s departure adds to changes unveiled last week by global managing partner Bob Sternfels, who appointed Chief Financial Officer Eric Kutcher as head of North America and Tracy Francis as Latin America chief, the people said. Kutcher has been with McKinsey for more than two decades, according to his LinkedIn profile. Francis, who is Australian and based in Brazil, originally joined the firm in 1997 and was recently its chief marketing officer.  

“Rotational leadership is a tradition at McKinsey,” a spokesman for the firm said. “Typically, our leaders will rotate approximately every 3 years, to provide fresh ideas and continue driving us forward.”

The moves come as the broader consulting industry is experiencing a slowdown in demand for its services. McKinsey has previously warned about 3,000 of its consultants that their performance was unsatisfactory and will need to improve. It has also been cutting hundreds of jobs in its technology and other divisions. Some partners are being counseled to leave from this month, the people familiar with the matter said. 

Other changes include restrictions on individuals sitting on both the firm’s shareholder’s council, which acts as its board, and its enablement team, which functions as an executive committee, according to one of the people.

McKinsey has been facing political backlash in the US over its engagement with China, where it has worked with hundreds of clients, including Chinese state-owned enterprises, multinational companies and publicly listed firms like financial giant Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. In the US, McKinsey’s clients have included the Department of Defense and some of the largest American corporations. 

Woetzel, a U.S. citizen who is in her late 50s, has written five books about the world’s second largest economy and led McKinsey’s research on China, Asia and global economic and business trends, according to the firm’s website. She has been based in the country since 1985, and has advised Asian governments on foreign investment and economic development strategies. 

Woetzel’s foreword in a 2015 Chinese publication titled “Scientific and Technological Revolutions around the World” described it as providing a road map for all possible opportunities China can explore for its technological development during the country’s 13th five-year plan, which was from 2016 to 2020. 

It drew US political ire earlier this year, including from Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who accused McKinsey of aiding the Chinese government’s industrial ambitions. Sternfels told a Congressional committee in February that McKinsey has in the past advised some Chinese state-owned enterprises, but it has never done work for China’s communist party or the central government, to the best of his knowledge. 

 

--With assistance from Amanda Wang.

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