Context 

Zurich Insurance Group is a leading global insurer with a strong heritage in traditional risk management and protection. As part of its strategic evolution, the Group established Zurich Global Ventures (ZGV), a specialized global platform focused on delivering innovative, digital-first propositions across travel, cyber, and life protection. ZGV operates at the intersection of insurance, technology, and customer experience, driving new growth opportunities in rapidly evolving markets.

Unlike traditional business units, ZGV brings together leadership teams spanning multiple disciplines — including traditional insurance, specialist lines, digital product development, data, and software engineering. This diversified operating model creates both opportunity and complexity. From a leadership and risk management perspective, one of the most pressing challenges was attracting and engaging senior talent across a broad range of industries, while ensuring alignment with the Group’s long-term objectives and governance standards.

ZGV required visibility not only into external talent markets but also into how leadership capabilities were structured across comparable global organisations. Without a consolidated, data-led view, succession planning, workforce design, and proactive talent pipelining were difficult to execute at scale. The business needed a solution that would provide strategic insight, transparency, and cost efficiency.

Solution

A combined technology and consulting solution was implemented to map target organisations across a wide range of industries on a global scale. The approach focused on identifying relevant peer groups spanning insurance, fintech, cybersecurity, digital platforms, and adjacent sectors competing for similar leadership talent.

Central to the solution was a purpose-built software infrastructure designed to replicate and visualise organisational charts at both Group and business unit levels. This created a dynamic view of leadership structures internally, enabling ZGV to benchmark roles, reporting lines, and capability clusters in real time.

The platform aligned talent insights to specific business lines while simultaneously enabling a Group-wide perspective. This dual view allowed ZGV to build targeted talent pipelines for individual ventures while also strengthening succession planning and mobility opportunities across the broader organisation.

The consulting component complemented the technology by providing ongoing market intelligence, competitor mapping, and strategic advisory support to leadership and HR stakeholders.

Solution

To transform its leadership talent strategy, the organisation adopted an integrated solution of Luminate's retained consulting expertise and purpose-built software platform. This hybrid approach was designed to systematically manage risk across the top global executive positions that were essential to driving growth and executing strategy.

Our consulting team partnered closely with senior HR and business leaders to align on priorities and define clear processes for succession planning, market mapping, and confidential benchmarking of incumbents against external talent. This partnership ensured not only a consistent and data-driven approach to leadership planning, but also deep contextual understanding of the company’s culture, strategy, and evolving business needs.

Complementing the consulting expertise, the software solution provided a centralised, continuously-updated database of external talent. This dynamic platform enabled the organisation to track real-time changes in the market, benchmark internal leadership capabilities against external competitors, and quickly pivot search efforts when market conditions shifted. By bringing previously siloed data into a single system, they could make faster, evidence-based decisions about talent moves, succession plans, and external hiring opportunities.

Outcome

The initiative delivered measurable strategic and financial benefits.

Continuous market visibility

ZGV gained continuous benchmarking capabilities, providing ongoing insight into emerging talent markets and competitor movements. Leadership teams now have clear visibility of complex organisational structures both at the Group and business unit levels, enhancing workforce planning and reducing organisational risk.

Cost efficiency & reduced search dependency

The solution also delivered significant cost efficiencies. By building direct access to mapped talent pools, ZGV reduced reliance on external search firms, with hires made at a fraction of traditional executive search costs.

A long-term strategic talent asset

Finally, the creation of a purpose-built, Group-wide external talent database established a long-term strategic asset. This database supports proactive engagement, strengthens succession pipelines, and ensures that ZGV remains competitive in securing high-impact leadership talent in an increasingly dynamic global market.

Learn more

Want to understand how we can help your organisation overcome similar challenges? Schedule an intro with the team.