Carl Hess

Carl Hess leads Willis Towers Watson (WTW) as CEO, overseeing the world's third-largest insurance brokerage and risk advisory firm behind Marsh McLennan and Aon. WTW was formed from the 2016 merger of Willis Group (a historic London insurance broker) and Towers Watson (a leading actuarial and human resources consultancy), creating a unique combination of insurance broking expertise and human capital advisory capabilities. WTW operates through two main segments: Health, Wealth & Career (employee benefits consulting, retirement plan actuarial services, talent and compensation advisory, and investment management) and Risk & Broking (insurance brokerage placing commercial property, casualty, and specialty insurance for corporate clients). The human capital advisory business is particularly distinctive — WTW's compensation surveys and benchmarking data are industry standards used by the majority of large corporations worldwide. The insurance brokerage industry benefits from a favorable structure: brokers earn commissions when premiums rise (hard markets) without bearing underwriting risk. Key stock drivers include insurance market pricing conditions, organic revenue growth in both segments, operating margin expansion, employee retention in a talent-intensive business, competition with Marsh McLennan and Aon, pension de-risking transaction volumes, corporate demand for compensation and benefits advisory, and capital allocation between M&A, buybacks, and debt reduction.