A NEW PURPOSE POWERSTHE LATEST LLOYDS BRAND

A NEW PURPOSE POWERSTHE LATEST LLOYDS BRAND

Corant

Corant is building a market-defining, global risk distribution group. Completely independent, it provides expertise and customer focus, backed by efficient and effective technology. Corant provides global wholesale specialty insurance and reinsurance broking services and underwriting solutions through its specialist brands. Led by Chief Executive Officer Steve Hearn, Corant has approximately 900 employees worldwide and places approximately $2bn gross written premium annually (2019). Corant Global Limited is owned by BGC Partners, Inc. (NASDAQ: BGCP), a leading global brokerage and financial technology company.
The
CHALLENGE
Corant Global was formed in 2019 when several independent brands (Ed, Besso, Piiq, Cooper Gay, Epsilon and Globe) came together as the insurance arm of BGC Partners, Inc, a leading global brokerage company servicing the financial markets.

It quickly became apparent that the Group businesses were very different – not only in terms of products and services but also culture, ways of working and even what stage of the business lifecycle they were at. They were also geographically dispersed, with some 900 employees across the globe.

At the start of 2020, Corant CEO Steve Hearn recognised that the Group needed a shared purpose that would allow the overall business to strategically align in order to capitalise on the significant opportunity in the marketplace. Whilst other organisations were consolidating around one name, Corant wanted to keep the individual brands outward facing to the market whilst bringing a group culture forward to create synergies and productivity improvements.

“I worked with John, Edward and team when I was the Willis Group President. The creation of the Leadership Message is a powerful process which delivers a highly bespoke outcome with very high improvement in employee engagement and ownership.
Despite the limitations that the pandemic has created, the execution has again been brilliant. I have no hesitation in thoroughly recommending John and the whole team at Delta V.”
Steve Hearn,CEO, Corant Global
Our
SOLUTION
In the fourth quarter of 2020 Corant embarked on a well proven process to effect the change they wanted, the Delta V Leadership Message Process in a programme they called Project Ambition.

From the outset, the Delta V team recognised the importance of involving employees at all levels of the business, across multiple territories and brands, at various levels of engagement. This would be crucial in winning hearts and minds and in ensuring that we had captured the broadest possible range of experience and opinions.

We involved some 80 members of the business across 10 global territories, from all levels and brands, who became our ‘Creators’. The events were run over Zoom with the support of our Zoom Moderators to enhance the experience for the creators.

By taking part in diagnostic events, creative ideas sessions and strategic clarity workshops with ongoing online cultural assessment and confirmation processes, the Delta V team was able to start extracting the shared values, ambitions and common strategic strands across the Group businesses.

Some 500 hours of interviews and workshops were carried out, as well as the use of sensing technology to garner further insight which measured feedback at various stages of the process.

Via a process of careful analysis and refinement, working closely with the business’ leadership team, we were able to identify and gain agreement on a shared purpose and vision for Corant, supported by values, strategic pillars and a target financial outcome.

The
EARLY RESULTS
The literal outputs of Project Ambition after three months included:
  • Recognisable employer brand positioning built by its own people encompassing a clearly articulated purpose, vision, values, strategic pillars and financial target outcome
  • ‘One team’ concept at the top two levels of leadership, with the Executive committed around a shared ambition
  • Clear framework for inward decision making
  • An actionable plan to help begin the process of truly embedding the purpose and values within the business, building useful relationships and sharing expertise across the Group
  • The creation of working teams aligned to the purpose, vision and values with clarity of the strategic intent and key priorities to achieve the financial outcome
The process produced a surge in engagement, at all levels, across the business. It has provided leaders with the clear context to lead, story tell and make decisions in pursuit of shared business goals.

Feedback has been overwhelmingly positive, with participants in the programme reporting feeling positive about the future, excited about opportunities and united in a shared vision for the Group.

Corant has been left with a fantastic strategic platform from which to drive the business forward, further inspiring client confidence, attracting the best talent from around the industry, growing the international footprint, sharing expertise across brands and creating Group operational capability and excellence, particularly around digital and technical requirements.