Snapshot

company: Howden Group Holdings (trading as Howden; includes DUAL, Howden Re)
sells: Insurance broking, reinsurance broking and underwriting (MGA) across retail, specialty, wholesale and capital markets - an insurance intermediary, not an end-product manufacturer
category: Financial services / insurance intermediary - a regulated, defensibility-sensitive sector (Opptly's explainable-AI sweet spot)
model: World's largest employee-owned insurance intermediary; ~1,300 employees hold ~35% of shares. Grows heavily by acquisition (65 strategic deals completed in FY24 alone), so is constantly integrating acquired workforces
size turnover: ~£3.01bn adjusted revenue FY24 (+23% YoY, 15% organic; £922m adjusted EBITDA, ~31% margin); ~$51bn premium under management. ~24,000 employees across ~55 countries / 100+ territories
ownership: Privately held, employee-owned (Howden Group Holdings Ltd). London HQ (One Creechurch Place / 133 Houndsditch, EC3)
hq: London EC3 (One Creechurch Place / 133 Houndsditch) — UK-first, matches Opptly's target geography

All recent triggers

Existing People Analytics function they are actively expanding (a Talent Acquisition Operations Lead role explicitly 'partners with People Analytics and the TA Leadership Team' on utilisation/satisfaction metrics) - the analytics muscle and TA appetite are both live source
Confirmed HRIS ownership (Rachael White, Group Head of HR Operations and HRIS) - Opptly's 'layer on your existing HRIS, not a migration' pitch has a concrete system and owner to attach to source
65 acquisitions in FY24 and 'a period of significant organisational change' = continuous integration of acquired workforces -> a genuine skills-mapping, redeployment and internal-mobility problem across a fragmented, fast-growing headcount source
Regulated financial-services group (FCA-regulated intermediary) - the exact environment where AI-assisted people decisions must be explainable, auditable and defensible source

Pain hypotheses

Skills visibility across a workforce assembled from 65+ acquisitions a year - titles and CVs from dozens of acquired firms don't map to a common skills language, making redeployment and internal mobility guesswork
Defensibility of people decisions in a regulated group - reporting dashboards show what happened, but hire/redeploy/promote recommendations need to show WHY to stand up to risk, audit and DE&I scrutiny
People-analytics function is growing but focused on descriptive dashboards (People, DE&I) - the gap is decision intelligence (who to hire/redeploy on skills), not more reporting
Large global group => stack fatigue and a strong bias against rip-and-replace; any new capability must sit on the existing HRIS/ATS, not migrate it

ICP-fit score

61/100
None

Sources