Ricardo Garcia: Building the Future of Switzerland’s Finest Social Insurance Provider

One of Switzerland’s foremost minds in the areas of investing, retirement, and the economy, Ricardo Garcia has been the CEO of PROMEA Social Insurance, the premier Swiss provider of social insurance services, since 2022. With Ricardo being named the Most Influential CEO 2026: Pension & Social Insurance Leadership – Switzerland as part of our Most Influential CEO Awards, we sat down with him for more on his career and the impact he has had across PROMEA.

PROMEA Social Insurance has been serving individual and corporate clients across Switzerland for decades, offering services such as pension fund management and other age security measures, as well as programmes relating to social insurance, such retirement, death and disability insurance and parental/caregiver allowance. Its reputation as the authoritative force for social security issues in Switzerland means Ricardo had a lot to live up to when he joined the company four years ago, on the back of a 20-year career predominantly in the banking sector.

Graduating from the University of Zurich with a master’s in finance, Ricardo’s roles before ascending to the top of the ladder at PROMEA spanned asset management, wealth management, and investment banking, as well as numerous managerial positions. What is most impressive about all of these roles is that they were for some of the biggest banks and financial institutions in Switzerland, such as Swiss Re, UBS, and Credit Suisse.

Bringing this financial acumen and management expertise with him to PROMEA, Ricardo’s role as the company’s CEO is to oversee all of its institutions, including the compensation fund, family allowance fund, and pension fund. These duties see Ricardo sit between PROMEA’s boards and its operations, ensuring that the vision and goals of the board are implemented by the people carrying out the company’s day-to-day operations.

To this end, Ricardo actively makes sure PROMEA operates an employee-friendly environment where talent is attracted, retained, and motivated to go the extra mile, something we will explore in more depth below. Besides this, of course, is an emphasis on performance and results, but every ounce of energy the company puts into forging its own success is complemented by something much bigger: a focus on sustainability and ESG principles, especially those concerning the climate and future of our planet.

In fact, PROMEA is so dedicated to sustainability that it even included it as one of three key focus areas upon defining its purpose last year, alongside people and security. Exploring these areas in more detail, Ricardo told us that the purpose here was to emphasise three points crucial to the company. The first is that it puts people at the centre of its work (which is particularly important in a world of AI), the second is that it holds the strength of its balance sheet dear, and the third is that it assumes its broader responsibility with pride.

The latter is seen through the responsible initiatives introduced over the last few years, including offsetting carbon emissions at its headquarters (with help from a partnership with the KMU Clima Foundation), investing in digital customer journeys to save on resources, using 100% green electricity, and supporting employees who use public transportation on the way to the office using Reka checks, which are vouchers that can be redeemed across thousands of holidays and experiences across the country.

In doubling down on this sustainable focus, which has already seen PROMEA become one of the three most sustainable social security funds in Switzerland, the company is continuing to set itself apart from its contemporaries, not only those in the world of social insurance, but also the other companies in the wider Swiss business ecosystem.

This distinction is reflected in some of the impressive figures the company has to its name, including a net promoter score of +58 (much higher than the industry average of +24) and an employee satisfaction score of 90% (well above the Swiss average of 67%), as of the completion of the most recent edition of the bi-annual Great Place to Work survey last year.

Ricardo has definitely played a major part in securing these numbers, and he shared with us some of the changes he has made over the last few years to keep PROMEA operating at the highest level. The first of these involves intensifying client contracts at management level, further increasing the high-quality service clients receive. “Given the seniority and importance of these discussions, I am directly involved”, Ricardo said.

This award-winning CEO also recognised that, despite its impressive quality, there was huge potential within PROMEA to optimise its internal processes, as well as its approach to areas like recruitment, governance, and technology. Implementing these changes required intensive change management, something Ricardo knows is rarely right for everyone. Yet, by getting key stakeholders involved quickly, hearing their input, and taking their feedback seriously, Ricardo was able to finetune decisions and take things in a direction that worked.

Touching on some of the shifts that followed, Ricardo explained: “We moved to a more goal-based system and decided to overhaul the whole goal-setting process, employee performance evaluation system, and remuneration approach. These processes have become much more rules-based and systematic now, increasing employee acceptance and motivation.”

This also acts a great example of Ricardo’s ethos of hearing everyone out, especially when they have ideas of new ways to do things. “It pays to listen to people”, he commented. “That doesn’t mean we run a holacracy, but the more people can have an influence, the more they buy into decisions and change. It is an illusion believing that you can do whatever you want as a CEO – you have to earn it all the time. You are just as good as your people.”

Thus, with PROMEA having 55 of the best employees in the whole of Switzerland, as well as the kind of culture where everyone knows everyone, Ricardo is clearly very good as the company’s CEO. He is passionate about rewarding these employees with the kind of environment where they can thrive, and this is why PROMEA offers generous homeworking rules (up to three days per week) with one weekly team day where everyone must come into the office. This keeps culture alive in a world where flexibility is a must.

However, this is just the beginning. As Ricardo added: “We also introduced so-called ‘PROMEA days’, where the whole firm gathers once a month in the office for employee events such as our Christmas party, an offsite, a summer barbecue, and so on. The strategy here is to offer more quality time together, rather than just maximising quantity and having people in the office for the sake of it.”

Given the challenges the team are facing in this space at present, including increasing regulatory demands and the high valuation of stocks, the sense of camaraderie the culture at PROMEA offers sees them aligned and keen to work together to solve these issues. For instance, in the wake of these shifts, the team have started to limit the amount of projects they take on and define new sources of returns (such as currency overlay, regular rebalancing, and new asset classes like private debt, catastrophe bonds, and direct mortgages).

PROMEA is not stopping there, and with plans in place to reshuffle its investment portfolios over the next 12 months, taking its returns to the next level in the process, the company has started institutionalising its asset management and created new positions. The intention, Ricardo explained, is for the company to run its investment portfolios like much bigger funds, introducing a more diverse portfolio with specialist advisors for each asset class.

Finally, as for his own next steps, Ricardo Garcia strives to continue with the same ambition he has had since his first day at PROMEA Social Insurance, keeping one step ahead of the opportunities that await and continuing to improve things across the company. We wish Ricardo, who has again been recognised as the Most Influential CEO 2026: Pension & Social Insurance Leadership – Switzerland, all the best as he continues to write the bright future of PROMEA, in the face of a changing social security sector, nonetheless.

More on PROMEA Social Insurance can be found by visiting the website below.