Swiss Re has appointed Henock Teklu (pictured above) as group chief transformation officer and group chief of staff, placing a BlackRock veteran at the center of the reinsurance group's strategy overhaul as it pushes deeper into AI-driven operations.
Teklu, who joins Swiss Re's Group Executive Committee effective April 1, brings 20 years of leadership experience spanning investment banking, insurance and asset management. The appointment signals the Zurich-based reinsurance group's intent to accelerate its "Built to Lead" strategy through external hires with cross-sector expertise.
At BlackRock, where he spent approximately eight years as a managing director, Teklu most recently served as chief of staff of the Portfolio Management Group.
Prior to that role, he was lead portfolio manager and head of private and structured credit for BlackRock's Financial Institutions Group, where he co-chaired the FIG Private and Structured Credit Investment Committee.
He initially joined the firm in 2018 as a senior portfolio manager within its multi-alternative platform, focusing on private credit and infrastructure equity opportunities globally.
Before BlackRock, Teklu was a principal at KKR, investing in private credit opportunities across North America and Europe. He previously served as special assistant to the group chief financial officer of Allianz, and began his career in investment banking at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, working in leveraged finance and fixed income derivatives, respectively.
Swiss Re said Teklu will orchestrate its enterprise-wide transformation agenda, a program the company has positioned as its top strategic priority.
The appointment was announced alongside Swiss Re's April 10 AGM agenda, which includes the nomination of former Hannover Re CEO Jean-Jacques Henchoz as a new board member and a proposed conversion of the company's share capital currency from Swiss francs to US dollars.
The company said the currency change is intended to align with the currency material to its business activities and reduce operational costs.
The reinsurance transformation program Teklu inherits has been framed not as experimentation but as operating model redesign, with AI integration across underwriting, claims and data handling already underway. The initiative is sponsored by the CEO and supported across operations, risk, legal, compliance and HR functions.
Teklu holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MSc and BSc degrees from WHU-Otto Beisheim School of Management. He is a member of the American Council on Germany and the Atlantik-Bruecke, and has served as special assistant to the chairman of the Munich Security Conference.
