Focus: Diversity, Equity & Inclusion:

Commitment and progress

At Swiss Re, we strive to foster an inclusive culture that brings together the best of different generations, genders, gender identities, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations, abilities, cultures, skillsets and mind-sets. We believe that we can only unleash the motivation and creativity of our employees if they can be themselves and feel like they belong. Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DEI) is a business imperative for Swiss Re and has been identified as one of the Group’s key priorities.

In 2020, the Group Executive Committee agreed on a detailed DEI plan to be executed in the coming years with a focus on:

  • Achieving progress in six global DEI areas: inclusive leadership & culture, gender, LGBTI+, race and ethnicity, mental health and DEI enablers with equitable people processes at the core
  • Increasing communication, awareness and transparency
  • Improving DEI data to drive outcomes
  • Setting clear accountability and goals
  • Putting clear roles and responsibilities in place to execute the strategic plan
  • Reviewing key people processes to ensure they are inclusive.

Key achievements in 2021

Inclusive Leadership & Culture: We rolled out a holistic plan to drive inclusive leadership and culture at Swiss Re. As a part of this plan, we put in place an inclusive leadership development approach targeting our top 200 leaders. In September 2021, we celebrated our first “inclusion month”, during which we collected employee stories focusing on inclusive leadership, launched an “inclusive leadership from every seat” toolkit for all employees and introduced various upskilling modules.


Gender: Swiss Re was included in the Bloomberg Gender Equality Index for the third consecutive year in 2021. We introduced an employee resource group called “Level Up” for all genders with the mandate of enhancing gender equality at Swiss Re. We are also making progress in improving parity of gender representation and against our target of having an equal gender split in nomination-based leadership development programmes.


LGBTI+ inclusion: We continued to recognise Pride Month globally with various activities and added rainbow colours to our Swiss Re logo to demonstrate our support for the LGBTI+ community. We also introduced all-genders toilet facilities in more than 20 Swiss Re locations.


Race and ethnicity: We ran a series of leadership dialogue sessions on inclusion through the lens of race and ethnicity and marked the International Day for Elimination of Racial Discrimination to increase awareness globally. New chapters of Mosaic, our employee resource group for people of colour, were established and we launched Kaleidoscope, an employee resource group focusing on nationalities and ethnicities.


DEI enablers: We conducted an extensive review of our practices, governance and communication as well as of our people processes through the lens of DEI. We are working on the resulting recommendations to further accelerate inclusion and diversity at Swiss Re. Furthermore, working closely with our vendors and partners, we have validated and strengthened the DEI principles in our contracts with these parties.

We have a culture of care and performance. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion are crucial to our collective business success. Responsible leadership and experience are key to win. We cannot expect people to perform if we don’t have all these elements in place.”

Cathy Desquesses,

Chief Human Resources Officer

Diversity, Equity & Inclusion
Our HR vision
Our Group People Strategy