Oliver Wyman

Oliver Wyman

Type	Subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan
Industry	Management Consulting
Founded	1984 (1984)
Headquarters	1166 Avenue of the Americas New York City, U.S.
Key people	Scott McDonald (CEO)
Services	Management Consulting
Revenue	USD$ 1.8 Billion in 2016[1]
Number of employees	4000 employees[2]
Parent	Marsh & McLennan Companies
Website	www.oliverwyman.com

Oliver Wyman is an international management consulting firm with a large focus on banking and financial services. Founded in 1984, the firm adopted its current form in May 2007, when Mercer Oliver Wyman joined with Mercer Management Consulting and Mercer Delta to become one firm named Oliver Wyman. As of fiscal year 2016, it was the fourth biggest management consulting firm in the world in terms of revenue, ranking just below the Big Three. It is part of the Oliver Wyman Group, a business unit of Marsh & McLennan.

The company is headquartered in New York City with 60+ offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific and employs over 4,000 professionals.

History

In 1984, Oliver, Wyman & Company, the first of three companies that would become Oliver Wyman, was founded by Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman - former partners from Booz Allen Hamilton.^[3] In 2003, Oliver, Wyman & Company was bought by Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) and became part of its Mercer Consulting businesses under the name Mercer Oliver Wyman. The company specialized in working with banks, insurance and financial services companies.^[4]

Mercer Management Consulting was formed through the combination of Temple, Barker & Sloane, which was founded in Boston in 1970 and acquired by MMC in 1987, and Strategic Planning Associates, which was founded in Washington, D.C. in 1972 and acquired by MMC in 1989.^[5] The two companies merged in 1990 as Temple, Barker & Sloane/Strategic Planning Associates, which was renamed Mercer Management Consulting in 1992.^[6] The company specialized in management consulting for industry and services.

Mercer Delta was founded in New York in 1980 by David Nadler as Delta Consulting and was acquired by MMC in 2000.^[7] The company was known for organizational transformation, board effectiveness and CEO leadership development.

Reportedly in 2005, Mercer Oliver Wyman was the unnamed consulting firm that in 2005 recommended to Citigroup's "senior-most management" to expand parts of its fixed income business, including in collateralised debt obligations (CDO), which led to more than US$50 billion in losses and ultimately a rescue by the U.S. government.^[8] The firm made similar recommendations to UBS, which expanded its CDO portfolio, suffered huge losses and had to be bailed out by the Swiss government.^[9]

In May 2007, Oliver Wyman was formed when parent MMC combined Mercer Oliver Wyman, Mercer Management Consulting and Mercer Delta.^[10]

In 2008, the company acquired several consulting firms, including: ChapterHouse,^[11] Academee (UK), Hemeria (France), Celent, and Harbour Consulting.^[12]

In 2012, Oliver Wyman was hired by the British Bankers' Association to help with the investigation into possible fraudulent actions related to interest rate submissions in the wake of the Libor scandal.^[13]

In 2013, in the wake of a scandal similar to Libor, the trade organization International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) hired Oliver Wyman to review how the worldwide common reference rate value for fixed interest rate swap rates (ISDAfix) is calculated.^[13]

Oliver Wyman Group

Oliver Wyman is part of the Oliver Wyman Group which also includes:^[14]

• NERA Economic Consulting founded in 1961 as National Economic Research Associates by the American economists Irwin Stelzer and Jules Joskow^[15]
• Lippincott (brand, image and identity consulting) founded in 1943 by the engineer J. Gordon Lippincott and architect Walter Margulies^[16]

Offices

Oliver Wyman has more than 60 offices in 27 countries.^[17]

Publications

• State of the Financial Services Industry 2016, an annual publication studying trends and issues of interest to financial services firms^[18]
• Oliver Wyman Risk Journal, an annual publication dedicated to helping business identify and prevent global emerging risks.^[19]
• Volume-to-Value Revolution, a report depicting the current state of the healthcare industry and describing how the health marketplace will be redesigned from the patient’s perspective.^[20]
• Energy Journal, a report reviewing trends effecting the energy industry.^[21]
• Women in Financial Services, a study reviewing the gender mix of senior staff at 150 financial services firms.^[22]

Recognition and Accolades

Oliver Wyman has been named in Fortune Magazine's 2016 list of 100 Best Workplaces for Millennials ^[23], in the 100 best Companies for Working Mothers list 2016 ^[24], and ranked 6th on the Financial Times / Glassdoor Best Places to Work in Finance and Consulting (UK) survey. ^[25]

The firm also consistently ranks well in Vault's signature Consulting 50, with a highest rank of 5th achieved in 2017.^[26]

Social Impact

Oliver Wyman devotes substantial time and resources to creating positive social impact on a global scale. Their London Social Impact programme won the Future Proofing Charities Award as part of the Lord Mayor's Dragon Award for 2016 ^[27]

Social impact projects have been undertaken for groups such as the British Red Cross, German Red Cross, Suicide Prevention Australia, FoodCycle, Big Society Capital, Eden Project, Boys & Girls Clubs of America, Save the Children, the Entrepreneurial Refugee Network, Daily Bread Food Bank, Kiva, City Colleges of Chicago, Young Rewired State, Emirates Wildlife Society (in association with the WWF), the Singapore Symphonia Company Limited (SSCL), Clinic by the Bay, Bob Woodruff Foundation, Civic Consulting Alliance and Alfatoun International. ^[28][29]

Non-profit partnerships

Oliver Wyman Group works with non-profit organizations to improve the lives of people in the developing world through microfinance, healthcare, and education. Alliances with non-profits include:

• Kiva.org - the person-to-person microlending website.^[30]
• Room to Read – an international non-profit organization devoted to breaking the poverty cycle by providing educational resources and opportunities to underprivileged children in the developing world.^[31]
• Women's World Banking – a global network of 54 microfinance providers and banks, working in 30 countries to bring financial services to poor women entrepreneurs to enable them to grow their businesses and lift their families out of poverty.^[22]

Under the Oliver Wyman for Society program, the company also reportedly has offered over 100 fellowships to associates who want to apply their management skills to non-profits.^[32]

Notable alumni

• J. Randolph Babbitt, Former Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration^[33]
• Lisa Gardner, Best-selling crime novelist^[34]
• Richard Lui, American journalist and news anchor for MSNBC. Previously a news anchor at CNN Worldwide.^[35]
• Christopher Meyer (author), Founder of Monitor Talent^[36]
• Nigel Morris, managing partner of QED Investors; co-founder of Capital One^[37]
• Antonia Romeo, British civil servant; British Consul-General in New York at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Director-General for Economic and Commercial Affairs in the USA for UK Trade & Investment^[38]
• Jamie Whyte, a New Zealand politician who is a former leader of ACT New Zealand^[39]
• Jeffrey Zients, former acting Director, Deputy Director for Management and President Obama's Chief Performance Officer ^[40]
• Premal Shah, president of microfinance company Kiva and leading social entrepreneur ^[41]
• Raphaela Neihausen, American filmmaker and producer ^[42]

Anglo Irish Bank controversy

Oliver Wyman in 2007 named Anglo Irish Bank as the best company in shareholder performance according to its proprietary assessment.^[43] In its report, Oliver Wyman lauded the bank's rapid growth of business lending, by an annual compound growth rate of 38% over 10 years.^[43] In the following year, the Irish Government was forced to nationalise the Bank at a cost of €25 billion.^[44] The Irish bank was liquidated in 2013 by the Irish government.^[45]

References

External links

• Oliver Wyman