Governance Impact

Governance Impact
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Aon's Better Being Podcast

Our Better Being podcast series, hosted by Aon Chief Wellbeing Officer Rachel Fellowes, explores wellbeing strategies and resilience. This season we cover human sustainability, kindness in the workplace, how to measure wellbeing, managing grief and more.

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Aon Insights Series Pacific

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Our Cyber Resilience collection gives you access to Aon’s latest insights on the evolving landscape of cyber threats and risk mitigation measures. Reach out to our experts to discuss how to make the right decisions to strengthen your organization’s cyber resilience.

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Our Employee Wellbeing collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team. You can also reach out to the team at any time for assistance with your employee wellbeing needs.

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Explore our hand-picked insights for human resources professionals.

Workforce

Our Workforce Collection provides access to the latest insights from Aon’s Human Capital team on topics ranging from health and benefits, retirement and talent practices. You can reach out to our team at any time to learn how we can help address emerging workforce challenges.

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Parametric Insurance

Our Parametric Insurance Collection provides ways your organization can benefit from this simple, straightforward and fast-paying risk transfer solution. Reach out to learn how we can help you make better decisions to manage your catastrophe exposures and near-term volatility.

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Our Pay Transparency and Equity collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's human capital team on topics ranging from pay equity to diversity, equity and inclusion. Contact us to learn how we can help your organization address these issues.

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Trade, technology, weather and workforce stability are the central forces in today’s risk landscape.

Trade

Our Trade Collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's thought leaders on navigating the evolving risks and opportunities for international business. Reach out to our team to understand how to make better decisions around macro trends and why they matter to businesses.

Weather

With a changing climate, organizations in all sectors will need to protect their people and physical assets, reduce their carbon footprint, and invest in new solutions to thrive. Our Weather Collection provides you with critical insights to be prepared.

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Our Workforce Resilience collection gives you access to the latest insights from Aon's Human Capital team. You can reach out to the team at any time for questions about how we can assess gaps and help build a more resilience workforce.

Governance Impact
Impact Report 2024

Governance Impact

Better decisions for a better world. Explore Aon's environmental, social, and governance impact.

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Introduction

As a firm in the business of better decisions, our Board of Directors, internal structures and governance approach model best practices to support effective decision making. The ability to understand and deliver innovative, trusted solutions to clients to help them address the risks and opportunities posed by ESG-related challenges across the four megatrends —Trade, Technology, Weather and Workforce — driving complexity and volatility for businesses. 

As one firm, we look at risk across all dimensions of our business and continue to further embed ESG and emerging risks into our enterprise risk management (ERM) strategy. At the same time, our continued investments and focus on our global Aon Business Services operating platform is designed to help our firm improve the quality of our content and capabilities, while simultaneously reducing risk by standardizing our operations and client delivery model to provide increasingly consistent service to our clients.

Our work in this space and the feedback we receive from clients, colleagues, investors and other stakeholders help inform our priorities and actions. We have enhanced our global and regional climate disclosures, such as through our Task Force on Climate-Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) Disclosure, and our ESG Supplemental Information has improved our disclosure and communication of our ESG policies and practices.

“Our approach is focused on linking governance, culture and purpose as a best practice,” said Darren Zeidel, executive vice president, general counsel and company secretary for Aon. “We combine strong organizational oversight with the flexibility, adaptability and resilience to solve problems when they arise and the communication and behavior modeling that builds an ethical, values-driven culture. This is the foundation of better decision making.”

Goalsetting is backed by relevant metrics and subject to Board and C-suite-level oversight. We are focused on coordinating across functions, geographies and areas of our business, clearly defining processes and policies, and operating effectively throughout the organization. This enables Aon to help our clients and our firm be more resilient. 

Jump to Section

  1. Board of Directors

  2. Enterprise Risk Management Strategy

  3. Cyber Security, Privacy and Data Compliance

  4. Governance Solutions for Clients

Board of Directors

Aon’s Board of Directors provides oversight related to organizational performance, strategic direction, management team performance, risk and key initiatives.

Our Board is focused on effective corporate governance to deliver long-term value for all stakeholders, including execution of the company’s ERM and risk mitigation strategies. Our Board engages in a thoughtful refreshment process, designed to ensure we are maintaining continuity, as well as increasing our expertise and insight into emerging risks. In the past five years, we have added five new Board members, who bring new and diverse perspectives and strong business acumen and experience.

Of the 13 directors on our Board, 12 directors are independent, including the Board chair. Additionally, three of our Board directors are ethnically or racially diverse and four of the 12 directors are women. Further information regarding our Board of Directors can be found on our investor relations site. 

The Board includes six standing committees or subcommittees

The Board Committees

Enterprise Risk Management Strategy

Our ESG efforts are embedded across our business and risk management. Key ESG risks identified in the assessment are incorporated into Aon’s enterprise risk management (ERM) framework and are reviewed regularly. Aon’s Board of Directors reviews Aon’s ESG and climate strategy and, more generally, the Board (or through its committees) oversees the company’s ESG risks and opportunities — human capital management, governance, climate, executive compensation, inclusion and data security and privacy, to name just a few examples. 

In 2024, the full Board (or its committees) reviewed people-related risks and opportunities, including colleague satisfaction and engagement survey results, hiring and talent pipeline, colleague wellbeing and succession planning. The full Board reviewed progress against Aon’s inclusion and wellbeing strategy and initiatives, as driven by our Global Inclusive Leadership Council, and continued to review other key ESG risks, including external commitments and governance of climate risks.

Cyber Security, Privacy and Data Compliance

Cyber risk has the potential to disrupt and destabilize businesses and continues to grow and escalate to a board-level concern for businesses around the world. Governance and risk management in this area has never been more important. 

At Aon, we prioritize security by guiding business leaders with a strategic risk governance process. Our Global Risk Leadership Committee, which includes experts in the security risks across Aon’s business areas, ensures we mitigate risks and follow best practices to protect our interests while achieving our goals. 

We have adopted strong cyber resilience practices that span the entire cyber risk life cycle. These practices help our firm identify, assess, mitigate and transfer cyber risk and quickly recover from attacks. Aon is committed to protecting our people, property and information. Our robust security program not only aligns with regulatory mandates, it also complies with laws safeguarding customer data and firm intellectual property. Our Information Security Program aims to protect our constituents, including colleagues, clients and shareholders. This mission is achieved through shared values and priorities. 

In response to growing cyber risks, we are focused on data-driven solutions that help clients identify, measure and manage the risk for greater cyber resilience and growth, building on our expertise, insights and proprietary tools and methodologies. One such tool is Aon’s Cyber Risk Analyzer, which, through loss forecasting, exposure assessment and total cost of risk analysis capabilities, allows risk managers to make data-driven, technology-enabled decisions to mitigate cyber risk.  

We work with companies to establish cyber security processes and governance frameworks that address cyber security as the enterprise-level risk it has become so they can make better cyber decisions and react to challenges in real time. 

Impact Story - Helping Clients Make Better D&O Decisions

Publicly traded companies face exposure to equity market volatility, adverse litigation trends and an evolving regulatory environment, and directors’ & officers’ (D&O) liability is a foundational risk. 

D&O insurance is therefore necessary for businesses to protect both their organizations and the personal assets of its top executives and board members. However, as the public D&O insurance landscape evolves, it is vital that renewal discussions go beyond expected loss and include the scope of potential risk.  

The D&O Risk Analyzer helps our brokers to inform and advise clients, so they can make better decisions that protect their business and leadership. Using real-time data and insights, the D&O Risk Analyzer simulates a range of exposure and loss scenarios, which help brokers test multiple insurance options and offer protection that fit their clients’ risk tolerance and appetite.  

This helps brokers in their conversations with public companies about how to optimize their strategic risk management and capital.   

Artificial Intelligence

Aon has a culture of innovation and we are relentlessly focused on delivering innovative solutions to meet client needs. Innovations like Artificial intelligence (AI) and, in particular, generative AI have the potential to revolutionize the way we work — but have also introduced new and evolving risks. 

At Aon, we are continually looking to enhance our services, including through the use of AI, and we are working across the firm to investigate these new capabilities and incorporate them into our Aon United toolset. 

We are focused on ensuring that we have the right governance model in place to help our colleagues protect Aon and client data, which is critical if we are going to engage with these new tools. The steps that we have taken to bring together operations in our Aon Business Service platform strongly positions Aon to assess and execute the best opportunities from across the firm, quickly and efficiently. 

Impact Story - Hackathon Addresses Impact of Climate Risk 

In 2024, the Aon Centre for Innovation and Analytics (ACIA) in Singapore hosted a hackathon to develop innovative ways to address the impact of climate risks on an organization’s workforce. 

Eight cross-functional teams within ACIA Singapore combined climate, employee health, wellbeing, benefits and talent data to enable clients to understand the effect and cost of climate risk on their human capital and develop strategies to mitigate these risks effectively.  

During the four-week-long competition, the teams were guided by 11 business advisors and judges across our solution lines and regions. The winning team proposed a solution using analytics and a holistic approach to examining key health and talent indicators to help clients answer important questions about the impact of climate on their workforce.  

The hackathon also enabled colleagues to expand their skill sets, meet new colleagues and learn about different parts of the firm.

Governance Solutions for Clients

Strong governance oversight enables better decisions, creating the conditions for organizations to quickly adapt to the changing landscape, shift priorities and proactively manage emerging risks. Aon provides C-suites and Boards of Directors with real-time insights and solutions that help them navigate an an evolving regulatory and stakeholder expectations landscape, prioritize relevant risks and focus on making better decisions by strengthening governance and oversight over key risk factors.

Our Aon United strategy is designed to address our clients’ needs by bringing the best of our firm and our expertise across ESG to their organizations and priorities. Working across solution lines — with specialized expertise in Risk Capital and Human Capital — and with nuance and depth at the industry level, coupled with a deep understanding of their business, we provide a tailored approach that helps clients navigate complex conversations and provide the vital information to relevant stakeholders such as regulators, investors, employees and customers to achieve the best possible outcomes.  

“The business environment is changing constantly, and with that comes new risks — and opportunities — that require companies and their boards to adapt and reprioritize to meet ESG goals and expectations from various stakeholders,” says Laura Wanlass, global head of corporate governance and ESG advisory for Aon. “We bring together a team of experts to address those risks in an integrated, cohesive way, relying on data and analytics and decades of experience so our clients can make better business decisions that serve them not only today but over the long term.”  

Our products and services reflect our clients’ evolving needs, including our portfolio of strategically developed solutions:  

  • Executive and Board Advisory Services: Our colleagues serve as formal ongoing advisors to senior leadership teams and boards of directors on current and emerging angles regarding ESG and sustainability, human capital (including executive compensation), corporate governance, cyber, AI and related sub-topics.  This includes presenting trends at quarterly board meetings and making recommendations on key decisions by using benchmark data and our knowledge of the regulatory landscape and other external stakeholder expectations. Our consultants serve as dedicated advisors to audit, nominating and governance and compensation/human capital committees of public and private company boards. We also offer director onboarding and ongoing education, as well as real-time tabletop exercises on cyber threats and other business continuity topics. 

Our incident response solutions and services are also recognized for the strength of our vision, expertise, integrated approach, risk quantification and insurance claims preparation and advocacy.  

When they strike, global protection incidents can have a catastrophic impact on the life and safety of employees, customers or stakeholders, as well as a significant enterprise-wide impact on the ability to deliver solutions or services.  

Aon’s Global Protection Incident Response (GPIR) Framework leverages our ERM and response capabilities across multiple regions or functional areas. The GPIR Framework is centered around and aligned to Aon’s purpose and values, ensuring actions and decisions made during GPIR mobilizations preserve those values. Aon’s values serve as guiding principles to decision making when debates arise about how activities or tasks should be prioritized during a response. These values are:  

  • Preserve life and the safety of all people. 
  • Ensure compliance with local laws and regulations. 
  • Fulfil our commitments to customers and stakeholders. 
  • Protect the brand and reputation of Aon. 
  • Mitigate operational disruption to our business. 
  • Act as responsible stewards of our business and strive to manage financial impacts of events.

Related Information

Impact Report 2024