Aon Consulting Announces New Hires Across Asia Pacific

CHICAGO and SINGAPORE, Aug. 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Aon Consulting Worldwide, the global human capital consulting organization of Aon Corporation , announced today the expansion of its Asia Pacific team with the addition of five new hires across the region.

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Klaus Liu is the Greater China managing director with responsibilities for the People's Republic of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Liu comes to Aon Consulting from Hewitt Associates where as a member of its Global Leadership Team he was responsible for the firm's business across Greater China. He also has extensive experience in the financial services sector having worked in managerial positions for Dun & Bradstreet and Citibank. In his new role, Liu is responsible for leading and managing all aspects of Aon Consulting's business in Greater China. Liu is based in Shanghai.

Boon Chong Na is the director of consulting for Southeast Asia, based in Singapore. Boon has more than 25 years of experience in leading consulting organizations, most recently with Hewitt Associates. His areas of expertise range from corporate governance, organization transformation and post merger integration, to executive compensation, talent strategy and performance management. Boon has extensive consulting experience in Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, as well as in Greater China. Boon is responsible for delivering consulting services and solutions for clients in Singapore and the other Southeast Asia countries.

Dhritiman Chakrabarti is director - Total Rewards Consulting, based in Singapore. Chakrabarti comes to Aon Consulting from Hewitt Associates where he was the practice leader for its total rewards group. He has more than 10 years of consulting experience operating out of five different countries. Chakrabarti has expertise across industries in performance and reward consulting, including consulting on executive compensation issues. At Aon Consulting, he is responsible for developing business and delivering compensation consulting services and solutions in the region.

Tony Kong is vice president - Global Applications. Kong has more than 10 years of experience developing sophisticated information technology solutions for global human resource management applications. He was most recently with Mercer. In this new global role, he is responsible for overseeing the introduction of technology and the management of projects to implement new systems and solutions around the world. Kong is based in Singapore.

Rick Payne is a principal consultant with Aon Consulting, based in San Francisco. Payne has more than 25 years of human resource consulting experience across Asia Pacific. He founded and built the Asian business of Corporate Resources Group (CRG), which was sold to Mercer in 1998. He specializes in talent management, organizational design and compensation. Payne is the author of several books and articles on human resource issues in Asia Pacific and also is a frequent speaker at regional conferences.

These most recent appointments follow that of Gina Parekh, who will join Aon Sept. 1 as the Health and Benefits practice leader for Aon Consulting Asia Pacific and country leader for Aon Consulting India. Parekh comes to Aon from Mercer, where she was senior vice president and head of the Employee Benefits practice for India. Prior to Mercer, Gina held the position of chief operating officer and medical director at United Healthcare India for six years. She will be based in Mumbai, India.

"Aon Consulting's new team members are strategically located across Asia, enabling our firm to offer its expertise in growth markets throughout the region, particularly in the talent management space," said Edouard Merette, CEO of Aon Consulting Asia Pacific. "We are seeing a fundamental change in the market that requires a comprehensive approach to talent management from recruitment to development. Our new team is well positioned to respond to these needs by assisting organizations in the development and implementation of strategies to build and retain capable and high-performing leaders.

"We are pleased this group of seasoned human resource professionals has chosen Aon to continue their successful careers," Merette added.

About Aon

Aon Corporation (http://www.aon.com/) is a leading provider of risk management services, insurance and reinsurance brokerage, human capital and management consulting, and specialty insurance underwriting. There are 43,000 employees working in Aon's 500 offices in more than 120 countries. Backed by broad resources, industry knowledge and technical expertise, Aon professionals help a wide range of clients develop effective risk management and workforce productivity solutions.

About Aon Consulting Worldwide

Aon Consulting Worldwide (http://www.aon.com/hcc) is among the top global human capital consulting firms, with 2006 revenues of $1.282 billion and 6,500 professionals in 117 offices worldwide. Aon Consulting is shaping the workplace of the future through benefits, talent management and rewards strategies and solutions. In 2006 and 2007, Aon Consulting was named the best employee benefit consulting firm by the readers of Business Insurance magazine.

This press release contains certain statements related to future results, or states our intentions, beliefs and expectations or predictions for the future which are forward-looking statements as that term is defined in the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from either historical or anticipated results depending on a variety of factors. Potential factors that could impact results include: general economic conditions in different countries in which we do business around the world, changes in global equity and fixed income markets that could affect the return on invested assets, fluctuations in exchange and interest rates that could influence revenue and expense, rating agency actions that could affect our ability to borrow funds, funding of our various pension plans, changes in the competitive environment, our ability to implement restructuring initiatives and other initiatives intended to yield cost savings, our ability to successfully execute strategic options for our Combined Insurance subsidiary, the impact of current, pending and future regulatory and legislative actions that affect our ability to market and sell, and be reimbursed at current levels for, our Sterling subsidiary's Medicare Advantage health plans, changes in commercial property and casualty markets and commercial premium rates that could impact revenues, changes in revenues and earnings due to the elimination of contingent commissions, other uncertainties surrounding a new compensation model, the impact of investigations brought by state attorneys general, state insurance regulators, federal prosecutors, and federal regulators, the impact of class actions and individual lawsuits including client class actions, securities class actions, derivative actions, ERISA class actions, the impact of the analysis of practices relating to stock options, the cost of resolution of other contingent liabilities and loss contingencies, and the difference in ultimate paid claims in our underwriting companies from actuarial estimates. Further information concerning the Company and its business, including factors that potentially could materially affect the Company's financial results, is contained in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

For more information, contact: Sara Carlson 312.381.5045 sara_carlson@aon.com