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Zurich Financial Services

Global corporate transformation programme – leadership focus

Brief

The Global Corporate business of Zurich Financial Services asked us to help design a leadership meeting to focus on business priorities for the coming year and to help drive its emerging Global Corporate Transformation Programme (GCTP).

Response

Feedback from the previous global leadership gathering illustrated that those scheduled to attend the two-day global leadership session in Germany wanted to roll up their sleeves and work together on shared issues, rather than be on the receiving end of a series of PowerPoint presentations.

To accommodate this, a set of ‘pre-session’ workshops was delivered in London, Zurich and New York to ensure that everyone was up-to-speed on business priorities and the transformation programme structure and its five key component projects prior to their arrival in Frankfurt.

As an output of these sessions, those responsible for driving forward each of the five transformation projects received feedback so that they understood the expectations and questions held by leaders prior to the global meeting. Project teams were thus able to ensure both a full response to questions and integration of preliminary contributions with project plans.

Thanks to the preparatory sessions, by the time the global meeting took place everyone had a full understanding of the strategy and priorities for Global Corporate, and were clear about how this connected with and supported the Group overall strategy and were able to relate local plans to the overall picture.

Additionally every delegate was up-to-speed with the transformation programme and had already contributed ideas to influence the direction and outcome of each project area.

The two-day meeting in Frankfurt, renamed ‘Global Corporate leadership workshop’ was able to concentrate on practical sessions with maximum participation from all involved. Leaders from all points of the globe worked closely together driving forward each of the project streams and engaging with the GCTP ( Global Corporate Transformation Programme) as a whole, to both further shape areas of delivery and fully to understand their role in supporting and enabling the emerging transformation to take root in their area of the business.

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Financial Times 'Share the Power'

John Smythe is featured in Stefan Stern's article of the 23rd March 2010.

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Including: John Smythe’s presentation to CIPR on 17 February 2010 at the offices of GAM

Material used at Engage for Change’s financial services seminar on engaging for recovery, held at the Groucho club on 17 February 2010

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