Canon Switzerland lives the co-leadership model

Nadja Mauchle and Ralph Schmid have combined their roles and management responsibilities and will now jointly lead the Marketing and Corporate Communications departments at Canon Switzerland in the form of co-leadership. As a result, they also share representation on the Executive Board. The changing world of work in the direction of New Work and organizational necessities gave rise to the questioning of familiar hierarchies and conventional leadership models.

Co-leadership with advantages

In the henceforth shared leadership role, decisions are based on different perspectives, dual professional experience, more knowledge, capacity and flexibility: "Shared leadership offers numerous advantages. Together we bring a broader expertise, due to our different experiences and skills. This contributes to holistic decision-making and more diversity of perspectives," explains Nadja Mauchle. "It also helps to make difficult decisions in a more reflective way," adds Ralph Schmid. "Co-leadership is a possible model for the future, which helps to promote the knowledge and skills of individual team members on a more individual basis. Ultimately, our customers and partners benefit from this, as do the teams within the organization," Schmid concludes.

Japanese company philosophy

Mauchle, who brings her strengths in strategic positioning and solutions business, has been with Canon Switzerland for 10 years with a brief interruption, during which time she has held various positions in sales and marketing. Schmid has been contributing his expertise in corporate communications as well as product, content and video marketing since 2016.

Co-leadership is based on the Japanese corporate philosophy Kyosei "living and working together for the common good." "This is directly in line with our branding strategy innovative, visionary and courageous. We see the co-leadership model as an enrichment for the company, as it brings the individual strengths of the two together even more diversity to the management team," says Markus Naegeli, CEO Canon (Schweiz) AG.

Source: Canon Switzerland