Women in Finance

Our 2024 Report

At Marsh and Guy Carpenter, we aim to create an inclusive environment where all colleagues can thrive and reach their full potential, whatever their identity or background. All colleagues should feel able to be their self, be heard and supported, and have a true sense of belonging at our Company. We believe this to be a fundamental driver to our success as a business. Every colleague has unique knowledge and experience. Individually this makes us valuable – and together extraordinary.

As part of our commitment to driving inclusion and diversity within our Company, we are dedicated to accelerating the advancement of women, both inside our firm and across our industry.

We recognise that we do not have as many women in positions of leadership as we would like, and we are keen to drive a meaningful change so that we can better reflect the communities that we serve and continue to be competitive as we look towards the future.

We believe having women in leadership is good for business. The value of women in senior roles is clear and we believe that the culture of our organisation will benefit as we improve representation, as will our performance and profitability.

Our commitment

When we signed up to the Women in Finance Charter in 2018, we aspired to 25% women in leadership roles by 2023. We exceeded this target last year and have reestablished a new five-year goal of reaching 35% female representation in leadership positions by 2028. We believe this is an ambitious but realistic target that will help us in our progress towards gender parity.


Year	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Year	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
% of women in senior leadership	18.7%	20.9%	20.8%	23.4%	25.6%	28.1%	29.7%

At almost 30% in 2024, we are pleased with our progress but remain steadfastly committed to growing this representation further.

Alongside our leadership representation target, our other commitments as part of the Charter remain in place:

To achieve a year-on-year 50/50 gender split in our early careers population, including our graduate and apprentice programmes.
To ensure recruitment searches for senior roles (Senior Vice President Grade and above) incorporate gender diverse candidate populations.
To link the achievement of diversity and inclusion targets to the overall business strategy and personal goals of our Executive Committee. These targets are to be assessed and measured as part of the year end performance and compensation review.

2024 progress highlights

In aiming to improve the representation of women at our senior grades, we are continuing with several initiatives whilst introducing new approaches and pivoting in our action plan when needed. Some of our key progress highlights from the past year include:

A 55% female graduate intake as part of our early careers programme.
Continued development of our female pipeline into senior roles. 33% of promotions into Managing Director and 43% of our promotions into Senior Vice President were for women.
Marsh has been recognized as part of The Times Top 50 Employers for Gender Equality 2024, being the first UK insurance broker to be listed. The list, coordinated by Business in the Community, showcases organisations that prioritise gender equality in their workplaces.
The Times Top 50 is the UK’s most high profile and well-established listing of employers taking action to create workplaces where everyone can thrive regardless of gender. Our inclusion marks a huge milestone and achievement on our journey to become one of the leading employers for gender equality in the UK.
Additional external recognition, with nominees and category winners at the UK Women in Insurance awards 2024, which are the premier awards for showcasing the achievements of women in the general insurance market.
A highly visible campaign with colleagues on the topic of menopause. This included highly popular live awareness events, toolkits for colleagues and managers, with the continuation of a menopause support network and training for people managers.
Recruitment of a new Diversity Equity and Inclusion Business Partner for the UK region which represents a great investment for the business to help take our DEI agenda forward.
Continued improvements to our policies, processes, and benefits in support of a gender inclusive culture that will ensure that our female colleagues have the best chance of thriving at work. Ongoing initiatives include a toolkit and training for HR on dealing with domestic abuse in the workplace, women’s health sessions as part of our wellbeing roadshows, and the provision of free menstrual products in the majority of our UK offices.
Delivery of the fifth year of our Aspire programme, a coaching programme aimed at high potential female colleagues, with 60 colleagues in the 2024 cohort. Almost 200 colleagues have completed the programme since its launch in 2020.
A number of successful and highly visible initiatives, spearheaded by our gender focused Colleague Resource Groups. Highlights this year have included the launch of the ‘Female Forum’, which encourages female colleagues to share their experiences in a safe space and to inform future policy making, the internal Balance Awards for top female role models and male allies, and the introduction of an additional group for Parents and Caregivers.
Our Elevate programme for female talent has concluded for 2024, consisting of group coaching sessions with a dedicated female development coach. Feedback from the cohort will be used to shape the program for 2025, and nominations for new members are being evaluated.

Accountability in leadership

Chris Lay, CEO of Marsh UK and Marsh McLennan UK, and Paul Moody, CEO of Guy Carpenter UK are our senior executive team members responsible and accountable for gender diversity and inclusion within our organisation. However, the full executive teams of both Marsh and Guy Carpenter have made specific commitments to advance our work across all areas of our diverse communities.

More broadly, Marsh and Guy Carpenter consider leadership to be a mindset, not a title. One of the qualities that is considered to make a great leader here is the ability to unlock people’s full potential and this includes building a diverse workforce where all colleagues can grow and thrive. We expect leaders at all levels to support the development of our inclusive culture and the advancement of our diversity commitments in their work.