Dominic Casserley, President and Deputy CEO, Willis Towers Watson; Former Managing Partner, McKinsey & Company
Richard Waters, West Coast Editor, Financial Times—Moderator

As the president and deputy CEO of Willis Towers Watson, the world’s oldest insurance broker (dating back to 1828), Dominic Casserley is in a position to understand risk and how to minimize it, particularly in the digital world. Technology and digitization is syncing up the fabric of communities, connecting the people who live in them and the devices they use every day, thereby enabling the personalization of every aspect of human life. No doubt these advancements can drive productivity, innovation and societal progress.

This connectivity, however, inevitably creates significant risks for businesses, threaten individual privacy, global economy and security. With these advances, cyber terrorism and warfare will find new targets in critical infrastructures, business intangible assets will become channels for economic espionage, human capital will be challenged, and a failure to maintain confidence in digital security privacy could cause a rejection of technology—all of which have the potential to retard economic growth.

Beyond the technological innovations aimed at preventing or disrupting hackers, the responsibility to address these challenges lie with various stakeholders, including government, risk advisors, security experts and human capital experts and the insurance industry that have long helped companies identify, quantify and mitigate business risks. Join us as Casserley discusses how digitization creates risks and opportunities for individuals and businesses, and how together people can mitigate the risks to preserve growth.

Before joining Willis Towers Watson in 2013, Casserley had a nearly 30-year career at McKinsey & Company, the leading global management consulting firm. During his three decades at McKinsey, he was based in the United States, Asia and, most recently, in London where he served as managing partner, responsible for the firm’s offices in London and Dublin. He has consulted with the world’s leading financial institutions to address their strategic and operational issues and deal with the opportunities and challenges of deregulation, globalization and new technology. At the time of his departure, he led the firm’s corporate and investment banking practice globally. Casserley has authored two books on financial services, advised business leaders on the former UK prime minister’s business council and also worked on the U.S. Presidential Task Force on Market Mechanisms during the administration of Ronald Reagan.