Oliver Wyman Actuarial - Senior HC Business Partner - Chicago (Chicago)

At Oliver Wyman, a Marsh (NYSE: MRSH) business, we bring deep industry insight, bold innovation, and a collaborative approach that cuts through complexity to help organizations navigate their most defining transformative moments.

As a business of Marsh, we work alongside the world’s leading experts across risk, reinsurance and capital, people and investments, and management consulting. Together with Marsh Risk, Guy Carpenter, and Mercer, we help organizations build resilience and competitive advantages from every angle. With annual revenue over $27 billion and more than 90,000 colleagues in 130 countries, Marsh helps build the confidence to thrive through the power of perspective.

For more information, visit oliverwyman.com , or follow us on LinkedIn and X .

Job Overview

The Senior Human Capital (HC) Business Partner serves as a senior strategic advisor to Oliver Wyman Actuarial's Property & Casualty and Life practices. Embedded closely with practice leadership, this role acts as a key conduit between the practices and the HC team, bringing practice insight, needs, and risks back to HC so the function can provide timely, aligned, and commercially grounded support to the business. In close partnership with the Director of HC, the role helps translate firm-wide HC strategy, talent priorities, and people initiatives into practice-level action while ensuring business realities inform HC decision-making and priorities.

This individual will serve as a trusted thought partner and change agent, helping marry the firm-wide HC vision with business priorities to enable growth, strengthen engagement, and sustain Oliver Wyman Actuarial's distinctive culture.

This role combines strategic Human Capital business partnership, tactical involvement in the delivery of key HC programs and processes such as performance management, and support for continuous improvement and operational excellence within the Oliver Wyman Actuarial HC function. As the business continues to evolve and pursue significant growth opportunities, this individual will play a critical role in helping navigate change, strengthen leadership capabilities, and ensure colleagues remain highly engaged and motivated.

The successful candidate will have a true seat at the table with practice leadership and will be expected to offer leaders constructive guidance, build deep trust and credibility, and influence decisions across a broad range of talent and organizational topics, in full alignment with our overarching HC vision and strategy. They will partner closely with colleagues across functions including Talent Development, Compensation, Mobility, Employee Relations, Finance, Recruiting, among others, to deliver an excellent colleague experience.

This is a hybrid role that will require a presence in the office three days per week. There is no option to be fully remote.

Key Responsibilities

Strategic Human Capital Partnership

• Serve as the go-to Human Capital partner to the leadership teams of the Property & Casualty and Life practices.
• Act as a trusted advisor to senior leaders, helping translate business strategy into people priorities and actionable plans, in alignment with the firm-wide HC strategy.
• Be an active contributor to practice leadership discussions, bringing a strategic Human Capital perspective to business decisions.
• Build strong relationships and credibility across all levels of the organization, influencing leaders through data, deep business understanding, HR expertise, sound judgment, and trust.
• Partner with leadership to anticipate organizational challenges and proactively develop solutions that support business objectives, and/or partner with others in the HC function (e.g., Talent Development) to bring these solutions to life.

Change Management and Business Transformation

• Lead and support complex organizational and people-related change initiatives, including developing plans for change management, stakeholder engagement, and communications.
• Help leaders navigate periods of transformation while maintaining colleague engagement, productivity, and culture.
• Identify organizational risks and opportunities associated with business change, partnering with the Director of HC to recommend practical solutions.
• Ensure Human Capital is appropriately represented and engaged in significant business decisions and transformation efforts.

Talent Strategy & Workforce Planning

• Support workforce planning, leadership development, and people/culture initiatives that further business aims, leveraging frameworks and processes from our Talent Development team as appropriate.
• Coach and advise leaders on people management and leadership, team effectiveness, talent decisions, and organizational dynamics.
• Identify capability/skill gaps and work with relevant partners (e.g., Talent Development, Recruiting) to develop targeted solutions.
• Foster a culture of continuous development, accountability, and high performance.
• In partnership with Talent Development, facilitate talent reviews that identify, develop, and retain high-potential colleagues, and craft succession plans for critical roles.
• Maintain awareness of market trends and talent dynamics affecting consulting and actuarial talent populations.
• Leverage workforce analytics/dashboards and other talent data to identify trends, inform decisions, and develop actionable recommendations for business leaders.

Performance Management

• Partner closely with Talent Development to ensure our performance management approaches remain fit for purpose in support of business objectives, and to deliver seamless and effective mid-year and year-end processes.
• Coach leaders through performance-related decisions involving both high-performing and underperforming colleagues.
• Partner with Employee Relations and other specialist teams as needed on complex performance matters.

Colleague Engagement and Culture

• Partner with Talent Development to analyze annual engagement survey results and ongoing pulse survey feedback to identify key themes and opportunities.
• Monitor engagement trends, retention risks, and other organizational health indicators (e.g., hiring, performance, promotion, mobility).

Employee Relations

• Partner closely with Employee Relations specialists on sensitive colleague matters and investigations.
• Coach leaders through complex people situations while ensuring appropriate risk management and compliance.
• Support resolution of employee concerns in a fair, thoughtful, and business-aligned manner.

HC Effectiveness and Continuous Improvement

• Support efforts to continuously improve and streamline Human Capital processes and ways of working, helping to drive increased consistency and reduce administrative burden on the business.
• Lead by example in the thoughtful use of AI in HC, and be an agent of change (both within HC and the business) in driving AI adoption.
• Partner closely with other functions such as Global Mobility and Compensation to further strengthen these collaborations and bring additional clarity to the operating model as needed; help improve awareness within the business of key roles, responsibilities, and process steps.
• Contribute to the continued evolution of a high-performing, efficient, and impactful Human Capital function.

Experience Required

• Bachelor's degree required.
• 10+ years of progressive Human Resources experience.
• Minimum 5 years of Human Resources Business Partner or comparable business-facing Human Capital experience.
• Experience supporting senior leaders and leadership teams in complex organizational environments, and leading/supporting significant change initiatives.
• Professional services or insurance/actuarial experience required or strongly preferred.
• Familiarity with the actuarial, insurance, or reinsurance talent market preferred.
• Demonstrated success influencing senior stakeholders and building trusted advisor relationships.
• Experience utilizing people analytics and workforce data to drive decision-making.
• Experience handling complex employee relations matters and sensitive people issues.
• Experience working within matrixed organizations and partnering across multiple functions.
• SHRM-SCP, SPHR, or comparable Human Resources certification a plus, but not required.

Skills and Attributes

• Strategic thinker with strong commercial and business acumen.
• Trusted advisor capable of influencing senior leaders through credibility and relationships.
• Excellent change management and organizational effectiveness capabilities.
• Strong analytical and problem-solving skills.
• High degree of data literacy and comfort interpreting workforce analytics.
• Exceptional communication and stakeholder management skills.
• Low-ego, highly collaborative, values-driven approach, consistent with Oliver Wyman's culture.
• Strong judgment, discretion, and ability to navigate ambiguity.
• Comfortable challenging constructively while maintaining trust and partnership.
• Self-directed, proactive, and capable of operating independently in a fast-paced environment.