Senior vice president

Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group P.L.C.

Age: 38

Rik Goyton had no idea his master's degree in political communication and rhetoric was preparing him for a career in insurance brokerage until recently, when he saw an article about businesses seeking more liberal arts candidates because of their critical thinking skills and interdisciplinary approach to problem solving.

“I read that and said, "Hey, that's me!' “ said Mr. Goyton, 38, a senior vice president and team leader since 2010 in Aon's Financial Services Group until last month when he joined Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group P.L.C. as a senior vice president in Denver.

Mr. Goyton joined Aon P.L.C. in 2001 after completing his master's at the University of Texas in Austin, thinking it would be a temporary job; he was planning to go back to school to get a doctorate so that he could teach at the college level.

“I wanted to find something interesting to pass the time for a year or two,” he said. But after joining Aon's Los Angeles office, he discovered “it wasn't what I imagined insurance to be. It's fresh and different every day. I have the ability to touch a lot of different businesses and make an impact.”

Mr. Goyton also has found the communication skills he honed in college to be integral to his job.

“Communication is key,” he said. “You always need to be talking to clients.”

Jeff Purdy, corporate risk director at Falls Church, Virginia-based Computer Sciences Corp., appreciated Mr. Goyton's problem-solving skills when they worked together on the company's international directors and officers liability insurance program.

“Every year, we would revisit it at the time of our renewal, and we could never quite get our heads around what the exposure really was. We're a company that operates in 90 different countries, so we're truly a global enterprise. And as a publicly traded enterprise, we've got directors and officers at subsidiaries around the world,” he said. “Rik was very diligent and persistent and focused on helping us through that process which culminated last year in us finally placing an international directors and officers liability insurance program” that required local coverage placements in 15 different countries.