We built our leadership on strengths established nearly 70 years ago.

It's a long way from a single bank building in Lake Forest, Illinois to our status today as the world's largest provider of multi-service human resources outsourcing. But the path we've followed since 1940, when Ted Hewitt founded his insurance brokerage firm, has proven wise for us and for our clients: understand what makes successful companies and provide products and services to help them and their people succeed.

By the 1950s, our agility at providing sound ideas and workable solutions had already established us as a provider of actuarial and related employee benefits and compensation services for major employers. And as we grew, so did our need for new offices. We opened the first Hewitt regional office in Minneapolis in 1959, then opened several others from coast to coast.

We branched into Toronto, Canada in 1974 and went overseas in 1985, opening offices in Paris and in St. Albans, outside London. Since then, we've opened dozens of new offices. Today, we have more than 3,000 clients, including the world's most successful companies. Our reach is truly global, with approximately 23,000 associates in more than 30 countries spanning the globe.

The company handles more than 117 million HR-related customer interactions a year for nearly 16 million employees, retirees, and their families.

Our clients say they count on us to bring them new thinking to an ever-changing list of challenges. Sharing our best thinking and learning across the company allows us to bring relevant innovations to all of our clients, and opens new possibilities for serving our clients exceptionally well.

• Designed first large-employer 401(k) plan.
• Helped design and communicate the industry’s first comprehensive flexible benefits plan.
• Nearly 95% of our largest clients have worked with Hewitt for at least five years.
• Pioneered full-service benefits outsourcing for clients, including on-site call centers.
• First to provide clients with real-time online access to personalized employee data.
• Created Benefits Index®, the first—and still most widely used — method for measuring the competitive value of benefits plans.
• Recognized as one of America's Most Admired Companies (FORTUNE, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004).
• Developed Rapid eMerge™ and M&A Management Center™, key tools to help employers manage complex mergers and acquisitions.
• First consultants to help link HR, compensation, and benefit programs to improve business results.
• Created breakthrough Human Capital Foresight™ measurement methodology giving companies the ability to measure and predict the return on their HR investment.
• First company to fully integrate HR Business Process Outsourcing services—including benefits, payroll, HR information systems, and more—with broad HR consulting expertise.
• Created the Pension Risk Benchmark which provides employers with an overall picture of the significance of their pension risks.