A few months after taking office at Zurich Group, Mario Greco has decided how he wants to restructure Switzerland's largest insurance company. He sees it as a turning point in the history of Zurich.
Zurich Group will become more agile, more accountable and have a more direct line of communication between the management and the staff taking care of customers, Zurich Chief Executive Mario Greco said in today's statement.
Zurich is combining life and non-life business under one leadership team globally, implementing what has been they case in key markets such as Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
Top Management Changes
The key change to the structure of the insurer affects the top management of the company. The heads of the regions and of the Global Corporate, Farmers and Investment Management units will report to the CEO.
Zurich also introduces the role of a chief operating officer, combining responsibility for operations and technology with underwriting, claims, reinsurance, actuarial and pricing. Part of the reason why Zurich introduces the new role of a COO is to enhance its ability to manage costs throughout the organization.
Departure of Robert Dickie
Kristof Terryn has been appointed as Zurich's first COO, CEO of the General Insurance unit since October 2015. Robert Dickie, the chief operations and technology officer has stepped down is looking for a new challenge elsewhere.
With the new structure, Greco hopes to prepare the ground for the company to consistently deliver profits. «The simplified structure will (also) allow us to become more efficient and support the implementation of our communicated cost reduction programs,» the CEO said. «The business has been improving its profitability in recent months, as evidenced by 2016 first quarter results. The changes announced today reinforce this positive momentum.»
Greco started in his job at Zurich in March. Martin Senn, his predecessor as CEO, stepped down in December 2015 after a series of setbacks at Zurich. Two weeks ago, he committed suicide.
