Z Zurich Foundation

Board Members

Gary Shaughnessy, Chair of the Z Zurich Foundation

Claudia Dill, CEO Latin America

Chris Gillies, External

Mario Greco, Group Chief Executive Officer

Jack Howell, CEO Asia Pacific

Alison Martin, CEO Europe Middle East and Africa & Bank Distribution

Sylvia Martinez, CEO Ecuador

Kathleen Savio, CEO North America

Yilmaz Yildiz, CEO Turkey

Management

Carlos Esteban, Z Zurich Foundation Manager

Mark Heasman, Senior Program Manager

David Nash, Senior Flood Resilience Program Manager

Manon Parmentier, Communication and Employee Engagement Manager

Ioana Birta, Coordinator

We empower vulnerable people within our communities to better protect themselves from risk, and to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing world.

We aspire for a more equal world where everyone has independence, choice and power over their own futures.

We continue strengthening our focus on climate resilience and wellbeing & inclusion, leveraging the capabilities of Zurich, its people and its strategic partners.

The Foundation’s funding supports three pillars of activity; our global program, our local programs, and encouraging employee engagement. Within these pillars, we focus our efforts on two powerful and relevant topics. We have identified that our biggest opportunities lie in consolidating our existing health and youth empowerment initiatives into a more holistic wellbeing & inclusion pillar, and expanding our flood focus to include other climate-related hazards and geographies.

Governments, businesses and individuals are starting to map out where they have the biggest impact and communicating this to their stakeholders, using the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. We have chosen to align with Zurich’s Sustainability Framework, and focus primarily on:

In all our activities, we adhere to seven guiding principles:

1. We support effective solutions that address social or environmental issues and have a meaningful, positive impact in communities where we are present.
2. We take a strategic, long-term approach to social engagement and clearly define the impact we want to have, the issues we wish to address, and the communities on which we want to focus.
3. We work with organizations in the non-profit, public and private sectors to achieve greater impact beyond that which each participant could achieve individually.
4. We make it possible for Zurich employees to participate in community work and involve them in the design, funding and governance of local community programs, while encouraging them to volunteer.
5. We do not limit our contributions to cash, but also offer the time, skills and expertise of Zurich employees.
6. We commit dedicated, skilled people to ensure sustainability and appropriate management.
7. We set objectives and monitor and evaluate performance against these indicators to ensure that we continue to improve in the areas we support. We are accountable to our stakeholders and report on our activities in a clear, transparent way.

The Foundation is an active member of the SwissFoundations network, and aligns its governance principles with those that SwissFoundations considers to be best practice.