Zurich Insurance Appoints Former SNB Chief Jordan to Board

(Bloomberg) — Zurich Insurance Group AG appointed former Swiss National Bank President Thomas Jordan to its board of directors.

He will join Zurich’s board after the annual general meeting in April, the company said in its annual earnings statement on Thursday. Jordan, 62, led the SNB’s main governing and rate-setting body between 2012 and 2024. 

“Mr. Jordan has substantial international financial market and monetary policy experience, as his nomination follows a distinguished career at the Swiss National Bank,” Zurich Insurance said in the statement. 

Jordan will join the board of the country’s biggest insurer that has been led by Mario Greco for almost a decade. The former central banker will bring his expertise in monetary policy and financial supervision to the insurer’s board. Insurance companies are big investors in sovereign and corporate bond-markets and income streams depend on the movement of interest rates. 

During his tenure at the SNB, Jordan oversaw the removal of the cap on the Swiss franc against the euro in 2015 and headed the central bank during the collapse of Credit Suisse. That event left the SNB relatively unscathed, with blame largely put on the country’s financial regulator and the bank itself.  

Jordan will probably earn less money in his new role. Board members at Zurich get salaries between 320,000 ($355,000) and 400,000 francs including shares, according to the insurer’s most recent annual report. That compares with the total annual remuneration of 982,000 francs he got at the SNB — which made him one of the world’s best-paid central bankers.

That would change substantially, however, if Jordan ultimately becomes chairman at the insurer. His earnings then could jump to around 2 million francs per year.

Jordan is among several ex-central bankers to join major financial institutions. Former Bundesbank presidents Jens Weidmann and Axel Weber became the chairmen of Germany’s Commerzbank and Switzerland’s UBS, respectively.

(Updates with Jordan’s salary starting in sixth paragraph.)

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