Aon’s Goltermann: Clients demanding brokers take ‘no barriers’ approach to solutions

By James Thaler

June 26 - (The Insurer) - Aon's Lori Goltermann has said that multinational clients are demanding solutions on a global scale without barriers, an approach her company has adopted as it drives greater connectivity between its risk and human capital units.

Goltermann, who serves as CEO for regions and North America, outlined Aon’s thinking in an interview with The Insurer TV at the company's investor day earlier this month – its first in nearly two decades.

“All the large multinational clients that are working outside of one of the regions that we're in, they want us to show up as a global firm with no barriers to be able to serve their most complex risk and people issues,” Goltermann said in the interview.

“And when I think about the environment that we’re in with clients, what's on their mind are really the megatrends. They're really trying to navigate through, ‘How do I deal with trade and supply chain (risk), digital transformation, and how AI is going to affect my cyber risk, as well as how is it going to affect transforming jobs, and weather, and our workforce in general?'

“When you think about how we can work across the regions, North America health, combined with the regulatory environment in the UK, a client wants to be able to sit down and discuss a global talent strategy,” Goltermann continued.

“And that's where we're really working together across regional borders very differently today at Aon to deliver for our clients, but even in the middle market, (and) learn from each other,” she commented.

Goltermann used clients in the food, agriculture and beverage industries as an example of businesses that might have similar risk profiles, whether they’re operating in Latin America or North America.

“So we have our chief commercial officers that sit in each of the regions that we're connecting (with) and learning from each other how to serve our clients with excellence,” she said.

'AI CONVERSANT' STAFF

On the topic of AI, Goltermann said that to make its staff more “digitally minded and AI conversant”, the company has taken its top 3,000 leaders and put them on a course to become more educated on AI.

“And that's really unique, because now we're translating that to how we work with our colleagues more efficiently, more effectively in everything we do, from doing research on clients, to how you host a meeting, to just how AI can make all of us more effective in our jobs,” she said.

She also laid out the most pressing questions that are top of mind for Aon’s management regarding how it plans to utilise AI.

“And probably the number one question I get asked by clients is, 'How can you help me understand the impact of AI on jobs and workforce? How will it affect skills in the job? What tasks are going to be moved through artificial intelligence and large language models? And how can you also help me look at where I should move this work in a geography strategy around that risk, and then model the climate impact? If I move that work around the world 10, 15 years from now, how will climate affect some of those geographies?'

“So, AI is probably the biggest boardroom discussion right now on clients' minds,” Goltermann concluded.