Dr. Annette Merz, Member of the Board

An MBA (lic.oec.HSG) with a focus on banking and a PhD (Dr.oec.HSG) in corporate Risk Management, both obtained from the University of St. Gallen-Switzerland, laid the groundwork for Annette Merz’s future career. To ensure continued training and education she later on graduated from the Advanced Management Program (AMP) at Harvard Business School and over the years attended various executive education programs in Switzerland and abroad with a particular focus on International Leadership and Corporate Governance.

Her in-depth understanding of the insurance industry as a whole and her comprehensive experience in leading insurance companies of very different sizes, geographic spreads and strategic plays are a reflection of a more then 30-year long successful career in various European and North American insurance markets. She is very familiar with assuming leadership responsibility, both in an executive and a non-operative role.

After joining Zürich Insurance Group at its headquarters in Zürich, Switzerland as underwriter for special and unique liabilities, she later assumed management responsibility for various projects, departments and business units, always in an international context. After completing a three-year long assignment as Regional Manager North America at Corporate headquarters in Zürich she joined the Executive Board of a US-based subsidiary. Among other responsibilities, she was also named President of one of the two core SBUs and as such led the successful turn-around management and restructuring of this entity. 2008 W. R. Berkley Corporation, Greenwich/CT. entrusted her with the start-up of a P&C-insurance company targeting a highly specialized niche market in the domestic small to midsize financial services industry. Independent insurance-related consulting projects, among others for the World Bank/IFC in Washington D.C., several for-profit supervisory board mandates with insurance companies in the United Sates and in Brazil, as well as with non-profit organizations in the United States round out her career.

By accepting an Adjunct Professorship for Strategic Management (MBA Program) with Loyola University Maryland/Sellinger School of Business in Baltimore in 2014 she made a first step into a direction that today she describes as her focus: Make a difference in a non-operational role through contributions that add value by applying and sharing her accumulated knowledge and experience in a focused and goal-oriented way.

2018 Annette Merz returned to Switzerland.

April 2020 Annette Merz joined the Corporate Board of B&B GAIN Partners.

Further Mandates:

• Austral Participaçoes, Rio de Janeiro/Brazil, Member of the Board

Core Competencies:

• Design and implementation of a comprehensive Strategic Management approach, if required through turn-around management
• Leadership in a multi-cultural, national or international environment
• Corporate Governance
• Risk Management
• Project Management
• In-depth understanding of the insurance business including but without being limited to technical expertise