Business POV

Mr. Case presides over a company with $10 billion in revenue and 45,000 employees in 120 countries. Since Case signed on as CEO, Aon has moved into its market's number-one position, increased earnings, improved the value of the company's stock and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new products and services. Here Mr. Case talks about the role that marketing has played in the company's success.

Part II will feature Phil Clement, Aon's Chief Marketing Officer, talking about his perspective on ushering Aon's marketing efforts into the new millennium.

Both Case and Clement spoke as part of a dual presentation before the Business Marketing Association on February 15th, at the Mid-America Club.

Words from the BMA's website regarding this special presentation:

In the 20 months since Greg Case became Aon's president and CEO, he's made marketing the cornerstone of the insurance brokerage's efforts to drive revenue growth and create a world-class Aon brand. He's also given marketing a major role in helping educate executives around the world about risk and its impact on the global economy.

It's not every Fortune 500 CEO who puts marketing that high on the radar. What's it like to be the CMO in a company like that—particularly the company's first CMO? Get a mutual perspective on Thursday, Feb. 15, when Case and Phil Clement, Aon's global chief marketing and communications officer, address this month's BMA/Chicago MarketingMasters luncheon seminar at the Mid-America Club.

Both Aon executives are longtime Chicago marketing and management executives. Prior to joining Aon, Case was head of Global Insurance and Financial Services at McKinsey & Company. Clement was previously the founder and managing partner of The Clement Group, a consulting firm that serves a wide variety of clients from the Fortune 50 to venture-backed start-ups.

After joining Aon as CEO in April 2005, Case quickly established a global marketing and communications team that would play a key role in a three-part growth strategy centered on delivering distinctive value for clients, attracting the best talent and achieving operational excellence. To head the marketing team, Case chose Clement, a former BMA/Chicago president and a veteran Chicago management and marketing industry consultant.

At $10 billion in revenue, Aon is one of Chicago's largest firms, with a young brand, 45,000 employees in 120 countries and a bright future. Since Case signed on as CEO, Aon has moved into its market's number-one position, increased earnings, improved the value of the company's stock and invested hundreds of millions of dollars in new products and services.

In his first year, Case met with an average of 100 clients per month and more than 30,000 colleagues in many of Aon's 500-plus locations around the world. During this month's luncheon presentation, Case will share how these conversations led him to understand the fundamental changes that were occurring in Aon's market and how the company could take advantage of these changes to spur future growth. Specifically, he wanted the marketing team to make all of Aon's global employees “walking billboards” of the company's brand promise.

Conversations that Case has had with CEOs, CFOs, risk managers and treasurers from Asia, Europe and the Americas suggests that, although companies are facing higher levels of risk with more complexities, the topic of risk is often misunderstood. The ability to understand risk is one of the fundamental drivers behind the global economy. And without an acceptable understanding of the subject, companies can't make the investments or the initiatives required to succeed.

Case and Clement will discuss how the agendas of the CEO and the CMO are evolving at Aon. They'll also talk about the process of designing, testing and implementing marketing initiatives as well as Case's philosophies on marketing risk-related products and services.