CEO Today Global Awards

40 www.ceotodaymagazine.com CEO Today Global Awards 2020 AUSTRIA ELISABETH STADLER General Manager (CEO) Chair of the Managing Board of Vienna Insurance Group Vienna Insurance Group manages and supports its around 50 Group companies in Austria and Central and Eastern Europe so that they can offer their customers comprehensive, individual and tailored insurance protection. The roots of the insurance group date back to 1824, when the oldest of the three insurance groups that today form the Wiener Städtische Austria, and out of which Vienna Insurance Group emerged, was founded. Economically, this period of the Habsburgs’ reign was characterized by nascent industrialization. Though the insurance industry was still in its nascence, a great number of companies were already being established. Due to the wooden construction techniques that prevailed at that time, the initial focus of these insurance companies was on fire insurance. The official birth of the modern Austrian insurance industry is considered to have been on 4 September 1819, when an imperial resolution declared that fire insurance in Austria was to be placed in the hands of private companies. “The Wechselseitige”, as it soon came to be called, was founded by a group of 364 personalities drawn from the nobility, industry and the church. The founders included the Prince Archbishop of Vienna as well as the administrator of the Archdiocese of Salzburg. With this, the cornerstone had been laid for the good relations between Vienna Insurance Group and the Catholic Church which exist to this day. In the Kingdom of Saxony, there had already long been a fire insurance company. In search of models for his planned undertaking, Georg Ritter von Högelmüller, an Imperial Army officer, went to study this institution on location and subsequently desired to transfer the idea to Austria. Following protracted difficulties – Högelmüller had begun submitting proposals to the estates of the monarchy’s individual Crown Lands back in 1803 – he finally received a license to do business as announced in the official government newspaper Wiener Zeitung on 24 December 1824. The 24th of December is therefore viewed as the date on which the Company was officially founded. The founding father of the insurance company was later to be honored with a street named after him in Vienna’s 5th district – Högelmüllergasse. www.vig.com Elisabeth Stadler studied actuarial mathematics at the Vienna University of Technology and has made a career in the Austrian insurance industry as a Member and Chair of Managing Boards. In May 2014, Elisabeth Stadler was awarded the title of ‘Professor’ for her services to the insurance industry by Federal Minister Gabriele Heinisch- Hosek. Since September 2014 she has been the General Manager of Donau Versicherung and 2016 she started being the head of VIG. About Elisabeth Stadler