Michelle Holmes

Michelle Holmes originates from Edinburgh, Scotland. She holds a BA (Honours) in International Commerce and French from Napier University, Edinburgh, Scotland and an MBA in International Business from IMEA (L’Institut de Management Européen des Affaires), Besançon, France.

Her career in Corporate Human Resources began with Philip Morris in New York as an International Assignment Manager. From there she moved to France to gain her MBA and joined IBM’s Regional HR team to support their Executive Education rotational programs.

In 1994 she moved to Switzerland to join the Corporate Human Resources (HR) team of Zurich Financial Services where she assumed various responsibilities within Executive Education, International Assignments, Performance Management and Compensation. In 2003, Michelle Holmes became responsible for Human Resources for the Corporate Center and for all of the operational management of the Group Compensation function. Two years later, she assumed the role of Group Head of Compensation where she built a global Total Compensation Philosophy and implemented a truly global function supported by common tools and processes. She also managed the Executive Compensation area, working closely with the CEO and the Board of Directors.

Current Responsibilities

Since 2007, Michelle has been self employed and has been supporting a wide variety of Companies in Switzerland and beyond in all areas of Human Resources. Through a combination of individually owned consulting firms and network partnerships, the whole spectrum of Human Resources solutions can be provided in an integrated manner.  

In 2007 Michelle founded her own independent compensation consultancy firm, M-Rewarding www.m-rewarding.com which supports a variety of Companies throughout Switzerland and beyond in all aspects of Total Rewards and Performance Management.

Her clients range from large public SMI Companies across a variety of industries to mid and small sized Corporations, as well as service based and non for profit organizations.

Focal points of her consultancy based support include:

• Facilitation of Board level discussion on total compensation philosophy and performance management as key input to subsequent compensation plan design.
• Development of global grading structures and global salary policies and guidelines.
• Review of existing variable pay plan structures (both short and long term) and the development and implementation of new models.
• Introduction of communication and educational concepts to promote and support the understanding and value of compensation programs.
• Audit and analysis of underlying performance management mechanisms at both the organizational and individual level.
• Operational support and management of year end close cycles and the required approval rounds with internal and external boards.
• Drafting of Remuneration Reports for annual reports and validation that all reporting requirements such as SIX have been met.

This was followed in 2008 with the creation of ACT actor-based corporate training www.actimpact.ch to provide dynamic learning solutions to corporations through the interactive use of actors and theater based techniques. Together with her team she has supported individuals from all hierarchical levels from a wide variety of organizations in the areas of:

• Organisational and team dynamics,
• Cultural awareness,
• Conflict Management,
• Communication and Presentation Skills,
• Team Building,
• Intuitive Interviewing,
• Pro-active Performance Management,
• Perceptive People Management,
• Team Building,
• Personal Coaching 

From one to one interventions to large scale workshops, Michelle is an experienced workshop facilitator and moderator and her client list includes Credit Suisse, UBS, Swiss Re, Swisscom, AO Foundation, Rieter, Valora, Varian, Deloitte and Nobel Biocare. 

To further enable the holistic support of organizations in all areas of Human Resources, Michelle is also a Business Partner of ABP www.abp.ch which provides support and solutions in the areas of HR Strategy, recruitment and assessment- 

Michelle is an active member of the International HR Community (IHRC) of Zürcher Gesellschaft für Personal-Management (ZGP) and the British Swiss Chamber of Commerce (BSCC) where she can often be found speaking at, or facilitating compensation focused events.

Fluent in English, German and French and with a good level of Spanish, Michelle’s main passions are travel and theatre. As a frequent traveler she loves to explore exotic locations. As a dedicated amateur dramatics fan she is heavily involved in, and on the Committee of, her local amateur dramatics group “Zurich Comedy Club”.