From cow herder to corporate chief – meet the man who leads Axa’s City division
Axa’s UK chief executive Claudio Gienal is willing to admit he’s a tough boss.
Speaking to City A.M., the Swiss exec, who took up his position as the head of Axa’s UK & Ireland business in 2017, is very clear that he doesn’t like “excuses”.
He’s also clear that the people around him have to be “honest” and that there has to be real “consequences” for those who fall short.
He said these values, which got him to where he is now, were instilled in him during his upbringing in a small village in the Swiss Alps where he grew up speaking Romansch, a rare local Swiss language, and worked as a cow herder while still in school.
“If you take out 30 cows, you need to bring 30 back,” Gienal says, as he argued the job taught him the importance of accountability at work.
He explained that those early experiences in the mountains of Switzerland also gave him a life-long enthusiasm for healthy living, which he hopes to impart upon his own daughters, as well as giving them a passion for skiing.
Yet for Gienal, health is about more than just physical fitness. Instead, the insurance exec is emphatic about the need for society to place a greater focus on improving mental health.
Axa’s own modelling shows work-related stress costs the UK economy an estimated £28bn a year, largely due to the loss of 23.3m working days as a result of burnout and poor mental health.
The insurance company’s surveys show a higher proportion of British people say they are “struggling” more than in any other country apart from the US.
Bad behaviour
Gienal’s love for fitness and the great outdoors, however, is a far cry from some of the loutish behaviour traditionally associated with London’s insurance sector.
The insurance industry’s reputation for laddishness has repeatedly seen the sector hit the headlines for entirely the wrong reasons.
These scandals have seen Lloyd’s of London take a tough approach to inappropriate behaviour, which eventually saw the insurance marketplace ban drinking during work hours in 2019.
In 2022 Lloyd’s hit its own syndicate member Atrium with its largest fine ever, of more than £1m, for tolerating a “culture of unacceptable personal behaviour,” which saw a junior member of staff subject to a “systematic campaign of bullying”.
Gienal argues there is no place for such behaviour at Axa, and claims his own tough approach to business makes sure people treat each other with “respect.”
The insurance exec has in turn worked to boost diversity within Axa’s UK business. As of January 2023, more than half (56 per cent) of Axa UK’s top executives are women, including all four of the firm’s chief operating officers (COOs).
In the long run
Having studied environmental engineering at Switzerland’s prestigious ETH Zurich university, the exec suggests his educational background also gives him a greener edge over his peers.
Europe’s top insurers have faced mounting scrutiny over the part they play in facilitating the global fossil fuel industry, through underwriting oil and gas pipelines across the globe.
The insurance exec, however, says his education puts him at the forefront of the sector’s wider push towards net zero, and ingrained the importance of long-term thinking.
Axa itself has vowed to transition into a carbon neutral company by 2050, in line with the aims of the Paris agreement.
As of 2021, the carbon footprint associated with Axa’s investment portfolio, would lead to 2.6 °C of warming if scaled up at a global level, with the firm having cut its emissions by 29 per cent since 2019 – and it has plans to cut even further.
Meeting halfway
Overhauling the EU’s Solvency II rules – which govern the sums insurers must hold on their balance sheets to protect themselves against bankruptcy – is one of the big talking points in the sector right now.
He, like many other insurance chiefs, agrees that even if the rules were relaxed, there is currently a lack of investable infrastructure projects in the UK.
In his view, a willingness to compromise would go some way to resolving this drought of projects, by striking a more even balance on the UK’s overly-restrictive planning rules, particularly when it comes to approving renewable energy projects.
“Everyone has to win and everyone has to lose,” Gienal says.
Now, as the world heads into an increasingly volatile and uncertain period, the case for a bit of Genial’s compromise and long-term thinking may be stronger than ever.