Swiss financial connection
by Katrina Kalleske
Swiss strategic project leader Manrico Filippi is an international kind of guy so his perspectives on the global financial crisis are well-informed.
While he has spent most of his life in Switzerland, his career has taken him to Singapore and the United States and his studies brought him to South Australia.
Filippi (pictured) spent several months working on a research project in Adelaide when he was studying for his Doctor of Business Administration externally through UniSA.
For most of his working life he has been employed in the financial and insurance sectors and Filippi now works for world-wide insurance company, Zurich Financial Services in the heart of Switzerland’s financial district, Zurich.
As one of the main financial centres in the world, Filippi says that Switzerland has certainly felt the effect of the global financial downturn.
"Demand for financial services has fallen dramatically and people and companies are trying not only to find ways to invest but also the best ways to safeguard their assets," he said.
"Everyday people have been affected by the global crisis too. Today we are witnessing the emergence of rising unemployment and looming deflation."
Like in Australia, he says the Swiss Government has also introduced stimulus packages to reduce the impact.
While Filippi has worked for financial institutions in the past, his work for the global insurance company now focuses on managing a range of major corporate projects.
"My current role involves the implementation of big strategic initiatives such as multi-million dollar projects in IT and business," he said.
"I have just completed a large initiative where we developed and rolled out a new strategic platform for all business units in Europe. The new application concentrates its key re-insurance systems onto a single core platform, benefiting all under-writer units across Europe.
"The most exciting part of my job is the variety of issues that I deal with. Also, leading people through the transformation phase of a new system is exciting as it reveals plenty of unknowns to manage."
Filippi’s work capacity with Zurich Financial Services was boosted several years ago when he undertook a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) with UniSA.
He says that after completing a Master of Business Administration with a Scottish university, he realised that while he had a wide-ranging knowledge of various business disciplines, he lacked deep insights into his core subject of global and strategic management.
"I wanted to undertake study where I could combine my business experience with academia, so a DBA was a logical step," he says.
"When I was searching for a university to undertake this study in 2001, UniSA was the only Anglo-Saxon university that offered a DBA program in Switzerland through its International Graduate School of Business in Zurich.
"Also, the focus of UniSA’s DBA program was clearly set on strategic and global management which con-vinced me to enrol in it.
"Financial institutions are usually looking for people to lead complex strategic initiatives who will be able to balance the various requirements from stakeholders and the rest of the organisations. It is vital that the mechanisms of such a wide-ranging transformation of an organisation are well known, and the study at UniSA clearly provided me with those vital skills."
Filippi completed his DBA with UniSA in 2004, the same year he started working for Zurich Financial Services, and says the degree really helped him to execute big strategic initiatives.