Jim Hays Minneapolis

Jim Hays worked for two different commercial insurance firms in the seven years after he earned his MBA from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management in Minneapolis. In 1987, he joined Aon plc, a global insurance and human resources solutions firm, and opened the company’s Minneapolis office. Just seven years later, frustrated by the restrictions imposed from afar on his operation of the business, Jim Hays left Aon and, with several colleagues, established the Hays Companies, a commercial risk-insurance brokerage.

The philosophy that has guided James Hays and his colleagues in the ensuing 20 years has been simple: hire the best, pay them well, and let them do what they were hired to do. That approach has met with success: in those 20 years, the Hays Companies has grown from a small regional startup to the 16th-largest commercial insurance brokerage in the country, with offices in 36 cities in the U.S. The firm has about 750 employees, and 250 of them work in the Minneapolis headquarters. Business is doing very well because businesses always want to protect themselves from risk, and the combination of natural disasters and aggressive prosecution of corporate malfeasance has generated headlines that are the firm’s best advertisements.

Active in civic affairs, Jim Hays describes himself as a fiscal conservative and a social progressive, and he has backed candidates from both parties for political office. He enjoys college and professional sports and has formed close friendships with several coaches and players, including Bobby Knight, Harmon Killebrew, Tony La Russa, and John Havlicek. One of the friendships he most treasures, though, is the one he formed with the late Neil Armstrong, the first man to walk on the moon, after Armstrong spoke at a company event years ago.