“Make sure your skills remain relevant” – Willis CEO

Young risk managers will have to work in an environment of rapid, sometimes almost overwhelming change, requiring new skills, Nicolas Aubert, CEO Willis GB, told the fastTrack Forum.

“We have to make sure that we are individually relevant for this revolution,” he said, pointing out that in a globalised economy skills were available almost anywhere on the planet. “How are we relevant to the industry? How are we relevant to our employers?” Like Inga Beale before him, he underlined the importance of data skills.

He discussed the new form that risks were taking. Cyber, for example, had been around since the 1990s, but nonetheless presented a different challenge today. “What is changing is how those risks are combining with other risks,” he said. “This is where the new form of risk is really coming.”

He nonetheless remained positive about the future. The market may be in turmoil at the moment, but it is still “very, very resilient” and “most of what we do is not really changing.”

The London market, he said, was going through a transformation, providing “a fantastic opportunity to participate in this transformation.”  

Nicolas Aubert