Corporate Governance and ESG

Practice Overview

Aon is home to a team of corporate governance professionals who work directly with boards of directors and senior management teams at both private and public companies to develop governance policies; build environmental, social and governance (ESG) strategies; and manage key stakeholders, including investors and proxy advisory firms.

Our team, including former proxy voting leaders and research analysts from major institutional investors and proxy advisory firms, leverages their expertise to help companies enhance board effectiveness, meet evolving corporate governance standards, improve shareholder and proxy advisory firm engagement, and build effective disclosure strategies. Overall, we enable firms to better understand shareholder expectations, prepare for shareholder meetings and communicate effectively with owners.

We advise companies on all aspects of corporate governance and ESG matters, considering market best practices, legal and regulatory considerations, proxy advisory firm policies, investor guidelines and voting tendencies. We do not take a one-size-fits-all approach to company fact patterns, recognizing the need for corporate management teams and their boards of directors to maintain flexibility while still achieving successful outcomes.

Why is Corporate Governance an Ongoing Challenge for Companies?

More frequent and complex proxy advisory firm guidelines, new government regulations and growing investor demands have elevated the corporate governance function to include responsibility for:

Why Work with Aon

Aon partners with organizations at every stage of their corporate governance journey, offering connected services, including world-class rewards data, consulting, corporate governance and ESG advice, equity services, executive compensation and more for every industry — globally.

Leveraging market-leading data powered by platforms like the Radford McLagan Compensation Databases and proprietary datasets, trusted by leading firms worldwide, our advisors work in a fact-based and collaborative manner to offer insights — and provide corporate governance consulting services to bring those insights to life — tailored to your business model, industry and investor profile.

We serve as the formal ongoing advisor to the full board or select committee (e.g., audit, compensation/human capital, or nominating & governance) and a range of C-suite contacts, from finance, HR, legal, sustainability teams and more. This includes presenting trends at quarterly meetings and making recommendations on key decisions by using benchmark data and our knowledge of the regulatory landscape and other external stakeholder expectations.

At Aon, our connected global team can help clients worldwide make decisions with clarity and confidence in a complex environment. Our clients trust us with: