Alicia Montoya

Alicia Montoya joined SDSC in December 2025 as Head of Industry Development in the Innovation team in Zurich.
Alicia Montoya is an impact economist, industry innovator, and sustainable solutions developer. From 2020-2025, she headed Swiss Re’s Research Commercialization unit, bringing high potential impact and resilience offerings from ideation to commercialisation. Prior, she worked on driving innovation and commercialization of solutions that address some key global challenges, from climate change and natural catastrophes to sustainable energy, food security, and resilient infrastructure and supply chains. Alicia led the development of the Insurance SDG Calculator, a tool that quantifies financial, risk, and sustainability impact and offers analytics for optimised business strategies. She also led Swiss Re's Quantum Cities initiative, layering physics-based models with financial and risk models to foster sustainable cities. Alicia started her career at Bloomberg, then worked at the European Commission before joining Swiss GPS technology start-up, u-blox, in 2005. She then worked for Alstom, driving the company's Clean Power campaign to help utilities and governments accelerate their transition to clean energy. She holds a B.A. in Economics, MSc in Social Anthropology, MSc in Multimedia Systems and a CAS in Board Management.