Co-Creating our Future: Secure Base Leadership@Alpiq
#breakthebias
#inclusion
#retainingwomen
Alpiq operates in a global energy market where electricity and flexibility are traded like commodities—easily bought, copied, or faked. In this landscape, culture is a key competitive advantage. Success depends on leaders who trust, encourage, challenge. Who care, dare, and share—creating a framework where diverse perspectives aren’t just possible but essential. Yet, how does a highly technical company drive cultural transformation amid geopolitical, climatic, and regulatory upheavals?
We launched a unique leadership program centered on Secure Base Leadership, starting with the Executive Board, senior leaders, cultural change drivers. Seeing its impact, we continue expanding it to all Alpiq leaders—both laterally and vertically. Trained internal ambassadors, now IMD-certified coaches, guide the program. Not exclusive to a few, this program is led by employees across locations, ages, and genders for the many. We have already trained a third of Alpiq in diverse learning formats.
Creating secure bases is easier than sustaining them – fostering open, diverse teams requires ongoing effort. True leadership lies in vulnerability; embracing it builds trust and psychological safety. Inclusive leaders prioritize authenticity over presence, modeling curiosity, humility, and courage. They challenge outdated practices, replacing exclusion with access. Commitment to time for leadership is key, and since the fish rots from the head, this must start at the top.
This Best Practice was first published in the Gender Intelligence Report 2025.
Operating in a volatile global energy market, Alpiq faced pressure to get future-ready while maintaining reliability. Electricity and flexibility are traded like commodities – making culture and inclusive leadership our key differentiators. Yet, fostering inclusive leadership in a highly technical, expert-driven environment proved difficult. Diverse perspectives were present but under-leveraged. Geopolitical, regulatory, and climatic disruption further strained cohesion. Traditional hierarchies limited openness and hindered psychological safety. We needed to move beyond uniformity and efficiency toward a culture where diverse voices are heard, valued, and drive progress.
This journey is still ongoing, which is why this is written in the present tense. Our goal is to create a culture where inclusion, psychological safety, and high performance reinforce one another. We see leadership as the key driver of this transformation – culture changes when leaders both believe in and drive the change. Secure Base Leadership, building up on the Care, Dare, and Share philosophy, is our chosen leadership model, as it places inclusiveness at its core: fostering trust and belonging, encouraging difference, and enabling shared ownership. We aim to elevate the how alongside the what, developing leaders who connect, challenge, and care. This marks a deliberate shift from heroic to post-heroic leadership (the former having been the dominant leadership understanding at the company for decades) – from power over to power with – building a culture where diverse perspectives drive collective success.
We launched a leadership transformation at the end of 2022, centered on a coaching-centric leadership model, relational, inclusive, and focused on creating safe spaces for others to thrive. A key pillar is acceptance: fostering belonging and connection to self, others, and the wider system. Starting with the Executive Board, the program has cascaded through the organization. Today, all leaders are trained, the scope now includes experts and talents. This shift is fully driven from within. Diverse internal leaders were trained as coaching ambassadors, storytellers and peer facilitators, ensuring relevance and momentum. In 2025, we launched an internal executive coaching hub: six senior leaders completed a 10-month IMD program and now coach others 10% of their time. More coaches will follow, embedding inclusive, coaching-based leadership at scale, transforming how we lead, connect, and grow together.
“We firmly believe that our company culture is our competitive advantage. In today’s complex environment, value-based leadership is essential. By both ‘caring’ and ‘daring’, we create a space where diverse voices are truly heard, learning is constant, and bold decisions grow from a foundation of trust and inclusion.” – Antje Kanngiesser, CEO Alpiq
“From my observations, Alpiq today and Alpiq ten years ago look like two different companies, thanks to its cultural transformation. Trust and responsibility, learning and growing together, embracing diversity and teamwork—these are not just words; they are at the heart of our daily work. It has been amazing to be able to use my skills and competences every day to contribute to Alpiq’s mission and success, with a strong sense of empowerment and accountability, as one Alpiq team. I believe that today our culture places Alpiq among the most attractive employers for top talent aspiring to build a meaningful career and create a positive change.” – Nadiya Vargola, Head BESS Business Development
As of today, one-third of Alpiq is trained, with visible culture shifts and rising engagement scores – our NPS increased from +1 in 2022 to +42 by the end of 2024, earning Great Place to Work certification across all locations. Inclusivity questions ranked in the top 5 survey results. Leaders increasingly model vulnerability, curiosity, and inclusion, creating secure bases where people speak up and challenge limiting beliefs. Moreover, our ever-growing coaching ambassador community visibly champions inclusion across Alpiq. Looking ahead, we are anchoring the Care, Dare, Share philosophy in HR processes, launching an IMD co-hosted podcast to explore key concepts like vulnerability or growth mindshift, and further developing our experiential park at the run-of-river plant Gösgen – launched in early 2025. While the progress is encouraging, this certainly remains ongoing work. People are at different stages of the journey. And under pressure, it’s easy to fall back into old ‘power-over’ patterns. It’s not a walk in the park – but a daily commitment, both caring and daring from all of us, to make it real.
While inclusion is central to our leadership understanding, we believe it must be woven into both the culture and the structure of the organization to truly stick. Structural anchoring is especially vital, without it, even the best intentions fade. That’s why we’re rethinking our performance management and how we recruit, promote, and evaluate talent to ensure fairness and access. We’re also piloting new approaches in one division, aiming to scale what works. These include somewhat alternative ways of recruiting or more experiential methods to address unconscious bias.
For more information about this Best Practice, reach out to the author:
Simon Reber
Head Organizational Development and Leadership
simon.reber@alpiq.com
ABB Switzerland is transitioning from traditional “Disability Management” to a strength-based “Ability Management” approach in health promotion. The company aims to significantly reduce absenteeism. Related targets will be integrated into leadership performance assessments. Through initiatives like the Icebreaker campaign, which encourages open dialogue about mental health challenges, ABB has already achieved measurable improvements in psychological safety and employees’ sense of belonging.
Swiss Re launched the Career Returnees initiative in July 2024 to tap into the underutilized talent pool of professionals returning to work after career breaks, recognizing that traditional recruitment often overlooks this experienced group. The program is built on four pillars: open positions for returnees, equal pay for equal work, development opportunities and flexible work options, with explicit career returnee advertising, internal awareness and a manager support toolkit, and external outreach campaigns. Since launch, the initiative has welcomed over 62 employees across 12 countries, with 92% onboarding satisfaction and 82% upskilling satisfaction, demonstrating that career breaks occur across all genders and career stages while returnees integrate quickly and deliver effectively.
dsm-firmenich launched the Mental Fitness Champions (MFC) initiative following a merger to support employee well-being during organizational transformation, training colleagues to listen to and support peers. The Global Vitality Office partnered with HSE Global to deliver a customized 7-hour peer support program based on a Canadian Armed Forces framework, training internal instructors and offering courses in six languages across 36 countries. Since launching in April 2024, the initiative has engaged 500+ colleagues in 60+ courses, with 95 certified champions in Switzerland alone, creating a peer-support network that promotes psychological safety, reduces mental health stigma, and fosters an inclusive workplace culture.
SBB established "OneSBB Meeting Points" as leadership dialogues focusing on "Value Diversity Respectfully," where around 1,000 leaders voluntarily participate in groups of 30 to discuss diversity, unconscious biases, and inclusion through peer-to-peer learning. The initiative runs from April to October 2025, featuring discussions led by top executives covering individual perspectives (bias awareness), team perspectives (case studies), and organizational benefits of diversity and inclusion. The program aims to enhance leaders' reflective abilities, foster empathy, reduce discrimination, and develop skills in conflict resolution and leading diverse teams, with outcomes evaluated through participant feedback.
As a global organization, JTI had established several policies to support the DEI agenda and were in the process of being certified by the EY Global Equality Standard. However, they recognized the need for a more localized implementation that met the specific needs of the organization at the time. By focusing on inclusion, raising awareness around bias, and introducing initiatives like the Virtual Reality „Men in Business – In the Body of a Woman“ experience, they have started to see positive changes in conversations, employee engagement, and inclusive management across the organization.
Generative AI (GenAI) is becoming increasingly integrated into our daily work, but with its use comes exposure to inherent biases. To address this, Accenture brought together experts from GenAI and inclusion to discuss these issues, focusing on promoting inclusivity through thought leadership and responsible AI frameworks. This collaborative approach aims to ensure GenAI is used responsibly and fairly, leveraging progressive governance to adapt to rapidly evolving technology.
If CEOs are value-driven they make Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion a strategic focus area. By trusting and supporting their leaders to authentically champion these initiatives, the organization is able to foster a positive culture, improve performance, and achieve success.
When leaders are empowered to pursue their beliefs and values, they can lead with authenticity, integrity, and purpose, resulting in positive impacts on the organization.
Learn how Swiss Re is enabling leaders to incorporate inclusion into daily practice and to foster an inclusive environment where everyone feels valued.
Unlock financial savviness with Zurich Insurance as they empower women to enhance their financial knowledge and skills. Explore the WIN Financial Awareness Program, fostering a supportive community and providing personalized services to boost financial confidence.
Involving employees pays off - learn what happens when the entire workforce sets the agenda for gender parity.
Join the ride: Along a compelling learning journey, PwC teaches the human skills needed to develop an inclusive mindset.
From storytelling to a real culture shift - learn how to use an impactful tool to change leadership behavior.
