Insurance comprises a substantial portion of Egon Zehnder’s market-leading Financial Services Practice, with more than 50 consultants stationed across all major financial hubs in the world. We conduct approximately 270 assignments annually — nearly half of which are searches for CEOs or board members — and currently work with 7 of the 10 largest global institutions, supporting our partners in search and leadership development.
Given the global nature of today’s insurance industry, a high percentage of our assignments involve extensive cross-border collaboration — a situation for which our One Firm model is uniquely equipped to deliver distinctive results. Our incentive system encourages collaboration over regional silos, bringing a unified approach to the client while leveraging our global network for local market expertise.
Transformation has been a recurring theme across all sectors of financial services. The rich history and traditional legacy of the insurance industry, in particular, leaves it most vulnerable to disruption. Our practice has noted a meaningful increase in the recruitment of Chief Transformation Officers, as well as assignments supporting clients’ shifts to digital channels, with the accompanying need to rethink IT and cybersecurity capabilities.
To this end, one of our key objectives in the insurance sector is to bridge the gap between large institutions and the FinTech players emerging in adjacent spaces. Many of the skill sets necessary to position insurance for the coming decade (e.g., a new generation of data analytics) may not currently reside within the industry; some may best be sourced through partnerships rather than traditional hiring.
Because we hire exclusively from industry, combined with our global reach across 66 offices and 36 countries, we are confident in our ability to partner with your firm to address the challenges ahead.
