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Swiss Best Practices in Corporate Governance
Deloitte study – talking to board members about diversity, sustainability and risk management
What characterises good corporate governance for a Swiss company? And how can this be actively embraced? We spoke with nine experienced board members to identify the key issues that they are currently dealing with.
economiesuisse published an updated edition of its ‘Swiss Code of Best Practice for Corporate Governance’ in February 2023. Alongside the economic upheaval and uncertainty of recent years – a pandemic, geopolitical risks and the question of how companies should approach issues such as supply chains, energy, rising inflation or finding talented staff – we have taken the reissued Swiss Code as an opportunity for a closer look at corporate governance in Switzerland.
We discussed the topic with nine experienced figures from the worlds of teaching and practice, all of them board members, in order to answer these questions: What characterises good corporate governance for a Swiss company? And how can this be actively embraced?
Our conversations revealed that good corporate governance will focus on three aspects:
- the composition of the board and how its members work together
- non-financial reporting
- risk management.
Our study contains a summary of our conversations and is complemented by an analysis of the annual reports of the 50 Swiss companies with the largest market capitalisation. The study also includes ‘3x3’ questions on corporate governance which board members can ask themselves to improve their own corporate governance. Our publication is rounded off with an overview of the main new features in the 2023 Swiss Code.
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