Oliver Wyman - Nera Economic Consulting

Oliver Wyman is an international management consulting firm. 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. Oliver Wyman is headquartered in New York City with 50+ offices in the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific and employs over 4,000 professionals. It is part of the Oliver Wyman Group, which is a business unit of Marsh & McLennan.

History

Oliver Wyman was formed in May 2007 through the combination of three global consulting businesses :

• Mercer Oliver Wyman: specialized in banks, insurance and financial services
• Mercer Management Consulting: management consulting firm for industry and services
• Mercer Delta: expert in organizational transformation, board effectiveness and CEO leadership development

Marsh & McLennan Companies (MMC) is the parent company of Oliver Wyman.

In 1984, Oliver, Wyman & Company was founded by Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman - former partners from Booz Allen Hamilton. From 1984 to 1995, Christopher Meyer was Vice President and Group Head at Mercer Management Consulting. In 2003, Oliver, Wyman & Company was bought by MMC and became part of its Mercer Consulting businesses under the name Mercer Oliver Wyman.

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 1990. The two companies merged in 1990 as Temple, Barker & Sloane/Strategic Planning Associates, which was renamed Mercer Management Consulting in 1992.

Mercer Delta was founded in New York in 1980 by David Nadler as Delta Consulting and was acquired by MMC in 2000.

In recent years, Oliver Wyman has been growing rapidly both organically and through acquisitions. In 2008, it acquired several consulting firms, including: ChapterHouse, Academee(UK), Hemeria(France), Celent, and Harbour Consulting.

Oliver Wyman Group

Oliver Wyman is part of Oliver Wyman Group which also includes:

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

Offices

Oliver Wyman has more than 50 offices in 25 countries.

Controversies

It was reported that 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. However, "people familiar with the analysis provided to Citi say it included ample warnings about the risks of diving into the structured product market, as well as other precautions that should be considered". At that time, Citigroup was led by Chuck Prince, a lawyer who had served as its general counsel and was described as having "relatively limited capital markets experience".

Citigroup was reportedly not the only bank that raised its exposure to CDO based on the advice of external consultants. It has been reported that UBS, based partly on a strategic review of fixed income business by Oliver Wyman, identified large growth potential in structured credit and securitized products and consequently expanded its exposure in these areas. UBS suffered heavy losses subsequently and had to be bailed out by the Swiss government.

Oliver Wyman in 2007 named Anglo Irish Bank as the best company in shareholder performance according to its proprietary assessment. 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. In the following year, the Irish Government was forced to nationalise the Bank at a cost of €25 billion. The Irish bank was liquidated in 2013 by the Irish government. In a criminal trial of two top executives of the bank, the judge called it "probably the most reviled institution in the state".

Publications

State of the Financial Services Industry 2016

This publication focused on how financial services are becoming “modular”, with digital distribution platforms, new product providers, alternative sources of capital and a growth in outsourcing fundamentally reshaping the industry.

Oliver Wyman Risk Journal, Volume 5

This publication studies emerging global risks and highlights those developing into pressing threats.

Volume-to-Value Revolution

This report depicts the current state of the healthcare industry and describes how the health marketplace will be redesigned from the patient’s perspective.

Energy Journal

This report reviews trends effecting the energy industry.

Women in Financial Services

This study reviewed the gender mix of senior staff at 150 financial services firms.

Non-profit partnerships

Oliver Wyman Group partners with non-profit organizations that work 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
• Acumen Fund â€" a global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty
• Room to Read â€" an international non-profit organization devoted to breaking the poverty cycle by providing educational resources and opportunities to underprivileged children in the developing world
• Women's World Banking â€" 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

Notable alumni

• Eric Aboaf, Chief Financial Officer, State Street Corporation
• J. Randolph Babbitt, Former Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration
• Lisa Gardner, Best-selling crime novelist
• Andrew Kuritzkes, Chief Risk Officer, State Street Corporation
• Richard Lui, American journalist and news anchor for MSNBC. Previously a news anchor at CNN Worldwide.
• Christopher Meyer (author), Founder of Monitor Talent
• Nigel Morris, managing partner of QED Investors; co-founder of Capital One
• Sid Sankaran, Chief Financial Officer, AIG
• James Wiener, Chief Risk Officer, BNY Mellon
• Jeffrey Zients, Acting Director, Deputy Director for Management and President Obama's Chief Performance Officer

References

External links

• Oliver Wyman