“Lawyers are not robots. We’re not automatons. Lawyers are incredibly dynamic and inspirational thinkers if we give them the platform to do that,” Pierre Gentin said on this week’s Drinks With The Deal podcast.

Gentin joined McKinsey & Co. as chief legal officer and a senior partner in 2019, and as he’s built out the legal function at the consulting firm, he’s sought to bring on lawyers who are engaged with the wider world around them.

“I want people who are the highest-caliber professionals, but I also want people who are dynamic human beings,” said Gentin, who also discussed the evolution of his own career at law firms, the U.S. Attorney’s Office and a 17-year stint as an in-house lawyer at Credit Suisse Group.

“I’m a religious Jew,” Gentin said. “I have a serious personal religious life. I play the piano and the guitar. I’m passionate about poetry and other things. And that’s just me. I find that every person if you engage with them and you start to bring them out of their shell, you find that there’s an incredible human being there. And I want that incredible human being to come out and be part of the community that we’re trying to build.”

Listen to the podcast with Pierre Gentin below:

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