Job sharing reaches the top of Swiss companies

Sharing a job between two people no longer concerns only middle-ranking roles. In Switzerland several companies have extended the model to general management, among them On, SoftwareOne, Villars and Vontobel.

The cases have different origins. Villars introduced dual leadership in 2024, entrusting it to Patrick Krauskopf and Valérie Stephan after the previous chief executive was removed. On, by contrast, appointed its co-founders David Allemann and Caspar Coppetti as co-chief executives from May 2026. In the first case co-leadership answers a discontinuity; in the second it consolidates an arrangement that already existed in practice.

According to research by the University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland, job sharing is used by 28 per cent of the organisations analysed, and around a third of those cases involve management positions. This is the share the literature calls top sharing.

What changes with two signatures

The advantages identified by the research fall into four types. The two managers' skills can be complementary, which widens the reach of the role. Differing perspectives reduce the risk of decisions taken from a single viewpoint. Succession becomes simpler, because the departure of one of the two does not leave an immediate gap. Decisions tend to be more considered, having to pass through a discussion.

The drawbacks concern cost and time. Two managers cost more than one, even when the overall workload stays equivalent, and coordination between the two absorbs hours that do not exist in the traditional model.

The main obstacle, however, is not economic. The research indicates that organisational resistance stems above all from traditional conceptions of running a business, that is, from the idea that a company must have a single person in charge and a single recognisable counterpart on the outside.

There is also an effect on the composition of senior management. Co-leadership makes a part-time management role possible, and this can broaden female presence at the upper levels, where the incompatibility between full-time commitment and family responsibilities continues to act as a filter.

The model is not without fragilities. The shared leadership at Kambly, held by the married couple Dania and Nils, ended following their personal separation: when co-leadership rests on a private relationship, its durability depends on that too.