Oliver Wyman
Encyclopedia
Oliver Wyman is an international management consulting
Management consulting
Management consulting indicates both the industry and practice of helping organizations improve their performance primarily through the analysis of existing organizational problems and development of plans for improvement....

 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
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 with 40 offices in Americas
Americas
The Americas, or America , are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. In English, the plural form the Americas is often used to refer to the landmasses of North America and South America with their associated islands and regions, while the singular form America is primarily...

, Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

 and Asia Pacific and employs over 2,900 professionals. It is part of the Oliver Wyman Group, which is a business unit of Marsh & McLennan.

Oliver Wyman is an established leader in the Financial Services
Financial services
Financial services refer to services provided by the finance industry. The finance industry encompasses a broad range of organizations that deal with the management of money. Among these organizations are credit unions, banks, credit card companies, insurance companies, consumer finance companies,...

 consulting industry and has also been described by The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...

as "a leader in general business consulting." It is one of the business groups that provides Marsh & McLennan with an edge over other insurance brokers. Adrian Slywotzky
Adrian Slywotzky
Adrian J. Slywotzky is a consultant and author of several books on economic theory and management. Slywotzky graduated from Harvard College and holds a JD from Harvard Law School and an MBA from Harvard Business School...

, a prominent business consultant and author of several books, is a partner at Oliver Wyman.

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
Booz & Company
Booz & Company is a global management consulting firm established in the United States in 1914. It is recognized as one of the most prestigious management consulting firms in the world and one of the best consulting firms to work for by Consulting Magazine...

. From 1984 to 1995, Christopher Meyer
Christopher Meyer (author)
Christopher Meyer is an innovator, business builder, author, founder of Monitor Talent , and thought leader on the future of the global economy. He is listed as one of the Top 200 Business Gurus in Thomas H...

 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.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....

 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 Dr. 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 includes:
  • NERA Economic Consulting
    NERA Economic Consulting
    ' is a global firm of experts dedicated to applying economic, finance, and quantitative principles to complex business and legal challenges. For half a century, NERA's economists have been creating strategies, studies, reports, expert testimony, and policy recommendations for government authorities...

     (microeconomic consulting)
  • Lippincott
    Lippincott
    Lippincott is a consulting firm that primarily deals with brand strategy and the development of corporate identities. The firm was founded in 1943 by J. Gordon Lippincott and Walter P. Margulies as Lippincott & Margulies....

     (brand, image and identity consulting)

Notable alumni

  • Sid Sankaran, Chief Risk Officer, AIG
  • Robert Kopech, Vice President and Group Chief Risk Officer, The World Bank
    World Bank
    The World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...

  • Christopher Meyer (author)
    Christopher Meyer (author)
    Christopher Meyer is an innovator, business builder, author, founder of Monitor Talent , and thought leader on the future of the global economy. He is listed as one of the Top 200 Business Gurus in Thomas H...

    , Founder of Monitor Talent
  • Andrew Kuritzkes, Executive Vice President and Chief Risk Officer, State Street Corp.
  • Andrew Rear, Chief Executive Officer, Munich Re Life - UK, Australia, and South Africa
  • Henry Essert, Chief Risk Officer, MetLife
  • Premal Shah, President, Kiva.org
  • Rupert Duchesne, Chief Executive Officer, Aeroplan
  • J. Randolph Babbitt, Administrator, Federal Aviation Administration
  • Bill Wyman, Co-Founder, Wyman Worldwide Health Partners
  • Charles Bralver, Senior Associate Dean, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
  • John Haigh, Executive Dean, Harvard Kennedy School of Government
  • Rajiv Vinnakota, Co-Founder and Managing Director, The SEED Foundation
    SEED Foundation
    The SEED Foundation also often referred to as the SEED Schools, is a private foundation, established in 1997 to provide boarding school educational opportunities to underserved students....

  • Lisa Gardner
    Lisa Gardner
    Lisa Gardner is an American author of fiction. She is the author of several thrillers including The Killing Hour and The Next Accident. She also wrote romance novels using the pseudonym Alicia Scott. Raised in Hillsboro, Oregon, she graduated from the city's Glencoe High School...

    , Best-selling crime novelist
  • David Gaylin, Executive Director, Boston Baroque
  • Lew Hay, CEO, FPL Group
  • Jeffrey Zients
    Jeffrey Zients
    Jeffrey "Jeff" D. Zients is an American CEO, management consultant and entrepreneur. On July 30, 2010, he was named acting director of the Office of Management & Budget. President Obama appointed him to the new position of United States Chief Performance Officer...

    , President Obama's Chief Performance Officer
  • Jeff Conlon, CEO, Kaplan Higher Education
  • Andrew Youn, Founder, One Acre Fund
  • Tom Arnold, Founder and Chief Environmental Officer, TerraPass

The Americas

  Atlanta

  Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...



  Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...



  Columbus, Ohio
Columbus, Ohio
Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...



  Dallas

  Detroit

  Hamilton, Bermuda
Hamilton, Bermuda
Hamilton is the capital of the British Overseas Territory of Bermuda. It is the territory's financial centre and a major port and tourist destination.-Geography:...



  Houston

  Keller, Texas
Keller, Texas
Keller is a city located in Tarrant County, Texas, in the United States. In 2011, it was ranked 93rd in Money Magazine's list of best cities to live in the United States. It is a northern suburb of the city of Fort Worth and is part of the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex...



  Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...



  Melville, N.Y.
Melville, New York
Melville is a hamlet and census-designated place in the town of Huntington in Suffolk County on Long Island, New York, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, 14,533 people resided there.-Location:...



  Mexico City
Mexico City
Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...



  Milwaukee

  Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...



  New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...



  Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...



  Philadelphia

  Pittsburgh

  Portland, Ore.

  Princeton, N.J.
Princeton, New Jersey
Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756...



  Reston, Va.
Reston, Virginia
Reston is a census-designated place in Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, within the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. The population was 58,404, at the 2010 Census and 56,407 at the 2000 census...



  San Francisco

  São Paulo

  Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...



  Washington
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....



Asia Pacific

  Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...



  Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...



  Mumbai
Mumbai
Mumbai , formerly known as Bombay in English, is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the most populous city in India, and the fourth most populous city in the world, with a total metropolitan area population of approximately 20.5 million...




  New Delhi
New Delhi
New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...



  Seoul
Seoul
Seoul , officially the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea. A megacity with a population of over 10 million, it is the largest city proper in the OECD developed world...



  Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...




  Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...



  Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...



  Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...




Europe and the Middle East

  Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi , literally Father of Gazelle, is the capital and the second largest city of the United Arab Emirates in terms of population and the largest of the seven member emirates of the United Arab Emirates. Abu Dhabi lies on a T-shaped island jutting into the Persian Gulf from the central western...



  Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...



  Dubai
Dubai
Dubai is a city and emirate in the United Arab Emirates . The emirate is located south of the Persian Gulf on the Arabian Peninsula and has the largest population with the second-largest land territory by area of all the emirates, after Abu Dhabi...



  Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf
Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...



  Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...



  Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...




  Istanbul
Istanbul
Istanbul , historically known as Byzantium and Constantinople , is the largest city of Turkey. Istanbul metropolitan province had 13.26 million people living in it as of December, 2010, which is 18% of Turkey's population and the 3rd largest metropolitan area in Europe after London and...



  Leatherhead, U.K.
Leatherhead
Leatherhead is a town in the County of Surrey, England, on the River Mole, part of Mole Valley district. It is thought to be of Saxon origin...



  Lisbon
Lisbon
Lisbon is the capital city and largest city of Portugal with a population of 545,245 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Lisbon extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of 3 million on an area of , making it the 9th most populous urban...



  London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...



  Madrid
Madrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...



  Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...




  Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...



  Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...



  Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...



  Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...



  Wilmslow, U.K.
Wilmslow
-Economy:Wilmslow is well known, like Alderley Edge, for having many famous residents, notably footballers, stars of Coronation Street and rich North West businessmen. The town is part of the so-called Golden Triangle in the north west together with Alderley Edge and Prestbury...



  Zurich
Zürich
Zurich is the largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is located in central Switzerland at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich...




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
Anglo Irish Bank
Anglo Irish Bank was a bank based in Ireland with its headquarters in Dublin from 1964 to 2011. It went into wind-down mode after nationalisation in 2009....

 as the best bank in the world in a piece of research published to coincide with the World Economic Forum
World Economic Forum
The World Economic Forum is a Swiss non-profit foundation, based in Cologny, Geneva, best known for its annual meeting in Davos, a mountain resort in Graubünden, in the eastern Alps region of Switzerland....

 in Davos
Davos
Davos is a municipality in the district of Prättigau/Davos in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland. It has a permanent population of 11,248 . Davos is located on the Landwasser River, in the Swiss Alps, between the Plessur and Albula Range...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

. The next year the Irish Government was forced to nationalise the Bank at a cost of €25 billion.
Oliver Wyman in 2009 also validated Bank of Ireland
Bank of Ireland
The Bank of Ireland is a commercial bank operation in Ireland, which is one of the 'Big Four' in both parts of the island.Historically the premier banking organisation in Ireland, the Bank occupies a unique position in Irish banking history...

’s bad debt levels at €6 billion over three years to March 2011, a bad debt level which Bank of Ireland
Bank of Ireland
The Bank of Ireland is a commercial bank operation in Ireland, which is one of the 'Big Four' in both parts of the island.Historically the premier banking organisation in Ireland, the Bank occupies a unique position in Irish banking history...

 had exceeded by almost €1 billion within a matter of months.

Publications

The Future of the Global Financial System: A Near-Term Outlook and Long-Term Scenarios

Oliver Wyman Financial Services led the research and analysis for this 2009 World Economic Forum publication that explores the driving forces that are shaping the global financial system and how these forces might affect governance and industry structure.

2010 State of the Financial Services Industry report

This publication, the 13th edition, focused this year on the recovery process and steps taken to overcome the seize on interbank lending following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008.

2010 State of the Communications, Media and Technology Industry report.

This publication analyzes the performance of 450 public CMT companies and identifies key value migration trends in the industry.

State of the Financial Services Industry 2011
This publication "stress tests" the financial system by describing a possible scenario for a future crisis involving bubbles in commodities and related assets.

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
    Acumen Fund
    Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty. Its aim is to help build financially sustainable and scalable organizations that deliver affordable critical goods and services that improve the lives of the poor...

     – a global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty
  • Room to Read
    Room to Read
    Room to Read is an international non-profit organization with its global headquarters in San Francisco, California. Founded on the belief that World Change Starts With Educated Children, the organization focuses on literacy and gender equality in education...

     – 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
    Women's World Banking
    Women’s World Banking spcial organisation is a nonprofit organization that provides strategic support, technical assistance and information to a global network of 40 independent microfinance institutions and banks that offer credit and other financial services to low-income entrepreneurs in the...

    – 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

Comparison to Competitors

Oliver Wyman was ranked 7th in the Vault Consulting 50 for 2011, combining Vault's "Best to Work For" ranking with overall prestige. Consulting Magazine has ranked MOW one of the top 10 consulting firms to work for in 2005, 2006, and 2007.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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