Kevin Willis Senior Associate
Kevin Wills focuses on business development in the insurance sector.
Kevin is a Fellow of the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (FCCA), having qualified in 1978, and holds a post graduate diploma in Business Management from Durham University.
He was Group Financial Controller of the international insurance broker Minet Holdings Group PLC (now part of Aon), and Finance Director of Business Development Consultants International Ltd., an executive search company, until 1993. In that year he joined Standard & Poor’s Credit Rating Agency (now S&P Global Ratings) in London as part of the rapidly growing Insurance Ratings team.
In his role at Standard and Poor's Kevin developed the criteria and process for analysing the performance and continuity of insurance syndicates trading in the Lloyd’s of London insurance market, which eventually led to the market itself being credit rated for the first time. He also developed criteria for the rating assessment of trade credit insurers, and the Islamic insurance (Takaful) business sector. A key component of this role was the ability to understand and challenge senior management of rated companies in their ability to drive a company forward, and to sustain that working relationship. Communication of Standard & Poor’s criteria and rating methodologies became increasingly important and he developed a key training discipline within Standard & Poor’s to explain, and particularly discuss, these aspects of Standard & Poor’s activities both with insurance companies and the wider market. These courses were run initially in London, and then expanded to Europe and to the Middle East and African regions.
In April 2010 Kevin moved to Standard & Poor’s Dubai, based in the Dubai International Financial Centre, where he established a resident insurance analytical team to cover the Middle East and African insurance markets. In this role he gave presentations at conferences and wrote many articles explaining how these markets work, the importance of and the facts driving credit strengths and weakness of insurers. In May 2016 Kevin resigned from Standard & Poor’s and returned home to the UK.