Roger Urwin

Global Head of Investment Content
Willis Towers Watson

 Roger assumed the new post of Global Head of Investment Content at Towers Watson in July 2008 after acting as the Global Head of the investment practice from 1995 to 2008.

Roger joined Watson Wyatt in 1989 to start the firm's investment consulting practice and, under his leadership, the practice grew to a global team of over 600. His prior career involved heading the Mercer investment practice and leading the business development and quantitative investment functions at Gartmore Investment Management.

Roger’s current role includes work for some of the firm's major investment clients both in the UK and internationally. He leads the firm’s work on transformational change and has conducted major strategic reviews at a number of global leading funds. He is also involved with the Willis Towers Watson thought leadership group (Thinking Ahead Group) and co-founder of the Thinking Ahead Institute.

His investment innovations include three global firsts: the creation of the first target date and lifestyle DC funds (in 1988), the risk budget framework (in 1999) and the governance budget framework for assessing asset owner organizational effectiveness (in 2007). He is also the author of a number of papers on asset allocation policy, manager selection and governance and sustainability.

Roger is also Advisory Director at MSCI Inc and Chair of the Advisory Council to the CFA Institute Future of Finance initiative Roger has a degree in Mathematics from Oxford University and a Masters in Applied Statistics also from Oxford. He qualified as a Fellow of the Institute of Actuaries in 1983. He became a Fellow of the UK CFA Society in 2015