Reflections on 2023: Beyond the financials

On Thursday night, as our group posted impressive Q4 and full year results, it gave me pause to reflect on how immensely proud I am of every colleague within our EMEA broking and underwriting operations, and our global reinsurance business.

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Hard work, team collaboration and a clear focus on always doing the right thing by our clients has once again resulted in a fantastic contribution to Gallagher’s overall financials.

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Organic growth of 16% for our London-based specialty team, 12% for global reinsurance, and 8% for UK & Ireland retail broking – contributing to an overall organic growth rate of 8.1% for the final quarter across the global group's core broking and risk management segments – are just a few of our own headline Q4 numbers highlighted by Pat Gallagher .

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Strong earnings results are only ever part of the story though. As proud as I am of our contribution to the financial success of the global business, other metrics underscore what a great place Gallagher is to work, to develop your career, to build your business and to balance the personal with the professional.

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Of course, that’s easy to claim, but our most recent EMEA engagement survey bears it out. A 90% response rate not only demonstrates really engaged colleagues, but by exceeding external industry benchmarks on each one of five key colleague experience indicators it shows how we are also succeeding in creating the strong, inclusive culture we aspired to build and preserve.

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Overall, for the insurance broking and underwriting businesses across EMEA, 90% of participants told us they feel their experience of working at Gallagher meet or exceeds their expectations. Equally heartening to see were the consistently high scores for inclusion, well-being and intent to stay, where colleagues tell us they feel respected, safe and able to bring their whole self to work.

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Hearing that makes me as proud as any double-digit stat could for organic growth. There’s another reason I find these engagement scores so encouraging. Everyone knows acquisitions are part of Gallagher’s DNA. Acquired growth will always be as much a part of Gallagher’s blueprint for strategic growth as organic. And, as reported last Thursday, during 2023 we welcomed no less than 51 merger partners globally.

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In some companies, that level of M&A would be a destabilising factor for their people – no one will deny integration brings challenges and a knock-on effect to colleague sentiment would be understandable. But our own colleague experience doesn’t show that. Quite the opposite. Despite the fact that, even within our own slice of Gallagher, we last year welcomed three further retail broking businesses in Ireland, six new specialist marine MGAs in both the UK and Norway, and other specialist brokers in education, leisure and fine art.

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To have that level of positive feedback about Gallagher being a great place to work is testament to how well we bring new colleagues and their businesses on board to deliver more than the sum of two parts in any acquisition. It also illustrates how our focus on M&A doesn’t detract from winning, retaining and growing client business to deliver on the organic side of the equation.

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Which is just one of the reasons why we continue to attract outstanding talent across broking, underwriting, business development, analytics, claims, client advocacy and many more areas of skills and expertise. Long may that continue – throughout 2024 and beyond.