In 2001 David Lewis founded OperationsInc and operated it largely from a spare room in his home in North Stamford. In the two decades since it has grown to a 142-person firm based in Norwalk with more than 1,000 clients.
The company made a name for itself with excellence in its human resources information system, payroll management, and extensive experience leading the field of talent acquisition.
On June 24, that growth culminated in its joining with Arthur J. Gallagher & Co, a global insurance brokerage, risk management and consulting services firm out of Rolling Meadows, Illinois.
According to Lewis, until recently the CEO of OperationsInc and now the National Managing Director of HR Consulting and a Senior Growth Advisor for Gallagher, the merger will magnify OperationsInc’s scope while it continues to focus on its core competencies.
“My focus continues to be what it was before,” Lewis said, “only with the rocket fuel that Gallagher is able to deliver for us, which will take the successful company that we’ve built over the last 23-and-a-half years and use that as a platform for growth.”
Lewis said he was excited to both grow the divisions within OperationsInc and combine the client bases of the two companies.
“We were very interested in David and OperationsInc primarily because we saw them as a very compelling and fascinating bundle of services that all of our employers and the market hold in high demand,” said Steve Coco, the Global Managing Director and Business Line Leader for Gallagher’s Benefits Services Division. “We really do think that the future is bright, and also that we are significantly better together.”
Coco and Lewis both placed an emphasis on the ease with which the transition can be performed. They credited deeply aligned priorities and corporate cultures that would allow for both seamless integration and retaining all current OperationsInc staff.
“I’ve been through acquisitions earlier in my career and many of them turned into consolidation type exercises with questionable pathways for the future of your employees,” said Lewis. “None of that is the case here. It’s exactly the opposite.”
Lewis noted that the Covid pandemic had helped many companies understand that being able to gather physically is definitely nice to have, but not a deal breaker when it comes to finding the right talent and skillset among employees, something Gallagher fully intends to take into account as the company grows its Norwalk workforce to provide the OperationsInc services to its expanding global client list.
Lewis noted that as companies that provide services and consulting in the field of human resources, it is critical that OperationsInc and Gallagher lead by example.
“A lot of other firms moved in different directions post Covid in the areas of work life balance and hybrid working or flexible work arrangements,” Lewis said. He noted that as a result many companies were reporting a happier workforce that appreciated improved flexibility.
“The difference with us is that we’ve been like that for 23 and a half years,” Lewis added. “All of our interviews start off asking people what is the ideal schedule that they want to work. And they told us honestly that they wanted to put their kids on the bus and not start work until 9:30 and then be available to take them off the bust at 3:30 and not work on Fridays.”
“We said yes, and brought those people on board,” Lewis said.
That culture, which has led to an alumni network of former employees who have watched the acquisition by Galagher with interest, was perhaps one of the most valuable aspects of OperationsInc according to Coco.
“We wanted to provide a forever home for the OperationsInc folks,” Coco said. “That was important to me and my team and also David and his team.”
Coco said that when discussions about a potential acquisition originally began, OperationsInc was already largely in compliance with “The Gallagher Way,” a list of 25 key tenets laid out by Robert E. Gallagher, the company’s chairman in 1984.
“We’ve been having a good time the last couple of days talking about how we could probably swap out the word Gallagher for OperationsInc and the ‘Way’ would fit,” said Coco.
Details of the transaction were not disclosed, but Lewis expressed confidence that the Norwalk offices will likely seek out additional staff as the segment grows.
