Oliver Wyman still FS focused?
Anyone have any idea of the mixture of projects that someone at Oliver Wyman might get? I've heard they are moving away from being FS focused especially if you're not based in NY and wanted to know how true this is. Edit: In the United States
A partner from them said recently still ~85-90% of their work is FS, that includes risk. They also have some presence in predominantly sell-side CDD and have a nascent aviation arm after an acquisition they did recently.
They are owned by a large insurance group. It makes sense that they are largely FS focused.
They were historically FS-focused because Alex Oliver and Bill Wyman were originally partners in the FS group at Booz Allen Hamilton. They now fall under the umbrella of MMC (Marsh). MMC has quite a large number of consultancies which it owns including investment consultants (Mercer), HR consultants (also Mercer), general strategy (OW), FS-focused consulting (also OW), brand strategy (Lippincott) and economic consulting (NERA).
Each of these firms has mostly separate competitors, though there is some occasional overlap. If I'm honest, I think Mercer is a bigger deal in investment consulting than in other areas. OW is quite well-respected, but generally not considered in the same league as McK, Bain or BCG (they're right below them in my estimation). Their investment consulting division, however, only has a couple competitors of similar size (Cambridge Associates and Albourne), so they're absolutely top-tier in that business. Similarly, Lippincott is quite well-regarded, and the HR consulting practice at Mercer has long been one of the very best anywhere.
I'm not sure how easy it is to move from one division to the next within MMC, but even under just the OW brand, they definitely do more than just FS work.
Great answer. Applied for OW out of undergrad a couple years ago, did not get it, but got the Mercer investment consulting gig. I ultimately turned it down and decided to do something else but I think that it is possible to transfer. Much easier to go from OW to Mercer than the reverse however
OW is diversifying away from FS but still do the majority of their work in the field, as mentioned above. This is unlikely to change significantly in the next 2-3 years unless they grow inorganically or hire aggressively from other firms.
Ranking-wise: they're pretty much on par with MBB in a lot of FS work, maybe in a Tier 1A/ Tier 1B situation. Elsewhere - excluding local niches driven by 1-2 specialized partners - they're a clear Tier 2, possibly below EY-P, S& and Monitor Deloitte in a variety of fields.
A buddy of mine used to work for them. It was a grind. He did 3/4 years and stacked up but got burnt out. He’s taking a year off for travel and I think he plans on working for a large insurance firm where there’s more of a work life balance.
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