Howden's horse-loving boss building 'the biggest small business' in insurance world

The multibillion-dollar insurance broker has never forgotten its humble roots.

- Ravi Velloor

For a business that was started in 1994 with initial capital of less than £100,000, by three men "and a dog named Flight", you could say Howden Insurance Group has taken off remarkably.

Adjusted revenue grew by 23 per cent to £3.01 billion (S$5.23 billion) in fiscal 2024, improving from the previous year's £2.44 billion. In its 30th anniversary year, organic revenue growth at the employee-owned firm - about a third of its 22,000 staff own equity in the company - was 15 per cent.

Some speak of London-based Howden as the world's largest independent insurance broker.

To use British understatement, you could say its founder, 61-year-old David Howden, a rugby athlete who never made it to college and whose first experience with employment was plucking pheasants for his local butcher in Yorkshire, has not done too badly.

I recently had the opportunity to meet the eponymously named Howden Insurance's chief executive and principal rainmaker to hear the story of how this horse-loving entrepreneur, who lives on a 2,023ha estate on which deer and Longhorn cattle roam, had built his global footprint from small beginnings.

Enough, in fact, for his firm to be a key sponsor at Royal Ascot, with the founder showing up in top hat and tails at racing's holy grail.

Mr Howden was born into a relatively well-off family, but after he lost his father at a young age, saw how crippling estate duties forced his mother to seek work as a schoolteacher for children with autism.

And after a spinal injury ended his own rugby days, the young David did not wish to continue his education beyond school. At that point, his mother advised that he might as well get a job.