Kate Toews is an Associate Partner in McKinsey’s Chicago office. She returned to McKinsey in 2022 after seven years working in industry. Most recently she led internal operations at Air Protein, a microbial protein startup. Prior to that she led the Beverage ingredients and copacking business for Kerry Taste & Nutrition, holding responsibility for $1B P&L. In addition, she was CEO of Chef’s for Seniors, a successfully franchised startup targeting older adult nutrition. At McKinsey, Kate serves as a leader in the Agriculture, CPG and Sustainability practices, and co-leads McKinsey’s work around alternative proteins. She brings an end-to-end understanding of the food value chain and provides strategic advice to ingredients and CPG manufacturers, retailers, Private Equity investors, OEMs, and agricultural input players.