Retirement rethink
Rich Nuzum, president of Mercer's wealth business, reckons traditional notions about investment risks and fees - and yes, the idea that people should stop working at a certain age - are ripe for reassessment.
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Genevieve Cua
AT 24, Rich Nuzum was only the second person hired for Mercer's investment consulting business in Japan in 1992. He had just completed a graduate Monbusho Fellowship in international economics in Tokyo University. That in itself was impressive, but it was most likely his ability to speak and understand Japanese that lent an added currency to his credentials. He quickly became the go-to person to explain issues to non-Japanese speaking clients.
"That was immensely interesting. I would get dragged from my office on short notice. One of the senior actuaries would say - what are you doing in the next three hours? In the cab on the way to the meeting, they'd tell me what the meeting was about. My job was to help explain the discussion to non-Japanese speaking senior decision-makers, which means I was in all kinds of client meetings that a 20-something-year-old had no business being in - M&A negotiations, (pension) plan redesign and restructuring, all things where being nearly bilingual was helpful.
"That was a huge opportunity. Normally, in your 20s in consulting, you're at your desk and maybe you see a client a couple of times a month. But I got a lot of client contact in cutting-edge stuff.''
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