Best global entity management Willis Towers Watson
When it comes to entity management, Willis Towers Watson (WTW) has a lot on its hands. The company has around 430 subsidiaries in roughly 100 countries. A properly run entity management program enables a firm to better respond to regulatory questions and regimes and gives it the ability to optimize the corporate structure, says Nicole Napolitano, general counsel for corporate governance & the public company and group company secretary.
During the awards period, WTW’s secretariat department conducted its second health-check exercise, sending questionnaires to each of its entities, enabling the team to flag those with strong governance and those needing extra support.
The team has also established a local governance contact (LGC) framework that enables it to maintain governance oversight across all entities. In some regions, governance activities are tackled by the secretariat department; in others, by LGCs who are members of another corporate function. ‘LGCs provide in-country expertise, document execution and co-ordination activities, and serve as essential links to global subsidiaries,’ the company writes.
WTW’s entity rationalization program was launched in 2016 following the merger of Willis Group Holdings and Towers Watson to finesse the organizational structure and provide governance oversight of inter-company transactions. At one point the company had more than 500 entities. The steering committee challenges the necessity for any new entity and has charged regional working groups to look at their entities and consider whether WTW would benefit from consolidating or disbanding them.
Among other achievements, the team has published subsidiary governance guidance on the company’s intranet. This guidance is principles-based to account for local law but it helps set the direction on issues such as directors’ duties, subsidiary board management and managing directors’ conflicts of interest.
It has also implemented governance software for its global entity information, enabling it to share real-time corporate subsidiary information with a wider internal stakeholder base. As one judge says: ‘What it has been doing is very impressive.’
