2017 Hot List Recipient
2020 Hot List Recipient
2021 CEO of the Year
Accolades
Media
Milestones
2003
2016-2017
2018
2019
2019
2020
Joined Swiss Re as a Senior Accountant
2003
Board member for Advance – Women in Swiss Business
2016-2017
Appointed Swiss Re Head of Western and Southern Europe
2018
Becomes member of the Aspen Global Leadership Network
2019
May: Named a fellow of the Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship
2019
Appointed Chief Financial Officer of Swiss Re’s Reinsurance business unit.
2020
A CFO’s dream: numbers and people
Numbers and people. Those were the two elements that Claudia Cordioli knew she wanted in her dream job.
While studying for her Master's degree in Business Administration at the University of Verona, Italy, and, later, becoming a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) in the United States, Cordioli, an Italian citizen, was drawn to new cultures, new languages, and different ways of working. That was how she discovered she wanted to work with both numbers and people.
As a young professional, she held several finance and consulting roles in major institutions, including KPMG in Zurich, CSC Ploenszke in Munich, DePfa Bank in Wiesbaden, and Italtel/Siemens in Milan.
But it wasn’t until 2003, when Cordioli joined Swiss Re, that she found the perfect solution to her numbers + people equation. A finance expert but relative insurance novice at the time, Cordioli said she was “impressed” by Swiss Re’s people and drawn to “the values that they manifested” throughout the recruitment process. Almost 18 years later, she’s still with Swiss Re, and she’s “grown to love” the industry.
“I happen to be a very curious person,” said Cordioli. “I was very fortunate to join a company like Swiss Re that actually fosters internal movement and gives a chance to people who are interested to see different things.”
Cordioli has served in senior finance roles, including Head of Swiss Re Group External Reporting and CFO Reinsurance EMEA. In 2016 she assumed the role of Head of Italy, Iberia & Mediterranean, and she was later appointed Head of Western and Southern Europe for Reinsurance in 2018.
“That [Head of Western and Southern Europe position] gave me a completely different perspective for my future finance career, because it’s a different thing when you own a P&L, and you really realize how complex it can be to reach the plan,” Cordioli reflected. “It gives you the ownership of the business and a better understanding of how the market and the clients work.”
“The CFO is becoming the right hand of the CEO in terms of making decisions and helping to [guide] the business,” she commented. “That drives my priorities, which I would summarize in three main buckets. The first, which is very close to my heart because of my background, is to help steer the business and make better business decisions.
“We’re currently in a very complex business environment. We’re at a point in time where our industry needs to be able to demonstrate it can earn at least its cost of capital, and that demands navigating a lot of different dimensions and making very savory business decisions. I think the CFO has got a very distinct role in that.”
Cordioli’s second priority is to use data and analytics in a way that fosters better decision-making. She explained that simply having data doesn’t place a reinsurer in a better position to make decisions. Companies need to create insights from their data that they can then turn into action.
“I think the finance function needs to develop its ability to utilize the data, create insights from the data, and put those insights at the disposal of the business to help them make decisions,” she said. “We’re doing a lot at Swiss Re right now in this field, and I think it will also change the profile of the finance function, and it will change the profile of the talent and the people that we need in the finance function. So it's quite an exciting point in time where we’re also looking at this from a talent development perspective.”
The third priority is linked to the specific phase that the industry is facing, while firms are implementing IFRS 17 and IFRS 9, which Cordioli thinks will radically change the way the industry views itself, sells it value proposition, and creates value for investors and stakeholders.
“If we get this right, this could be an amazing opportunity for the industry to make itself more transparent and understandable. But it also brings a lot of complexity,” she said. “I think the CFO has got that translation role as well between the business, the stakeholders, and the world out there to make sure that the proposition of the industry’s value creation is adequately transferred and understood.
“It’s a very exciting point in time to be in finance right now. I think also for young talent and people who are interested in numbers, technology, and data, it’s an amazing career to get started in right now.”
Spotlight
On March 1, 2020, Cordioli was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Swiss Re’s Reinsurance business unit – a position she holds to this day, and one that she described as going back to her “original love” of finance.
But it wasn’t exactly plain sailing from the outset. Cordioli assumed the CFO Reinsurance position in the same month as the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic. The health crisis brought surprises and affected the industry - especially in lines like property and business interruption - in ways that no one could have foreseen – even seasoned finance and insurance professionals like Cordioli.
“It has been, from every perspective, a very intense, very challenging, but also very exciting time,” she told Insurance Business. “There hasn’t been a dull day yet.”
Throughout her career with Swiss Re, Cordioli has observed and experienced continuous evolution in the CFO Reinsurance role. She believes the role is changing from one mostly focused on reporting on the financials to that of a trusted adviser, responsible for ensuring that firms have the forward-looking data and analysis needed to make the most effective decisions.
The Swiss Re Group is one of the world’s leading providers of reinsurance, insurance, and other forms of insurance-based risk transfer, working to make the world more resilient. It anticipates and manages risk – from natural catastrophes to climate change, from aging populations to cybercrime. The aim of the Swiss Re Group is to enable society to thrive and progress, creating new opportunities and solutions for its clients. Headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland, where it was founded in 1863, the Swiss Re Group operates through a network of around 80 offices globally.
Company Profile
1863
YEAR FOUNDED
c. 14,000
MANPOWER
~80
OFFICES GLOBALLY
#268 & #519
Fortune Global 500 AND Forbes Global 2000
AM Best A+ (Superior)
RATING
Bio
Spotlight
Milestones
Media
Accolades
Company Profile
years in the industry
c. 18
Tenure at current position
2017 - Present
BAsed In
Toronto, Ont.
Fast Facts
“The defining moment in my career was when I […] had the chance to become the head of the Western and Southern Europe reinsurance business. That gave me a completely different perspective. It gives you that ownership of the business, which I could bring back to finance and utilize in my next role as CFO Reinsurance.”
Claudia Cordioli
Chief Financial Officer, Reinsurance at Swiss Re
Swiss Re’s CFO Reinsurance, Claudia Cordioli, chats to IBA about how the role of CFO in (re)insurance is evolving
Read on
“I was very fortunate to join a company like Swiss Re that actually fosters internal movement and gives a chance to people who are interested to see different things”
Claudia Cordioli,
Swiss Re
“It has been, from every perspective, a very intense, very challenging, but also very exciting time. There hasn’t been a dull day yet”
Claudia Cordioli,
Swiss Re
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2011
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“I was very fortunate to join a company like Swiss Re that actually fosters internal movement and gives a chance to people who are interested to see different things”
Claudia Cordioli,
Swiss Re
“It has been, from every perspective, a very intense, very challenging, but also very exciting time. There hasn’t been a dull day yet”
Claudia Cordioli,
Swiss Re
Named a fellow of the Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship
Named a fellow of the Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship
May: Named a fellow of the Aspen Institute Finance Leaders Fellowship
