Aurelia Figueroa
Global Head of Sustainability
Aurelia Figueroa, Chief Sustainability Officer at Breitling, has over 15 years of experience developing and leading
sustainability initiatives across the public and private sectors and in the fields of international diplomacy
and social entrepreneurship. Originally from the United States, Aurelia first came to Switzerland to complete a
graduate internship at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. She conducted her graduate and
undergraduate studies in the United States, France, the United Kingdom, and India.
At the start of her career in 2009, Aurelia was awarded a fellowship by the Robert Bosch Foundation, which places
promising young professionals at high levels in the German public and private sectors. During this time, she worked
on climate policy at the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Climate Action and at Siemens, strengthening
her interest in supporting sustainable transformation across sectors. Afterward, she worked at the German Institute
for Development and Sustainability as a researcher on the transformation of economic and social systems. Here,
she led a number of international research programs focused on social and environmental sustainability.
In 2012, she was recognized as an Emerging Leader in Environmental and Energy Policy by a European-Union-funded
initiative led by the Ecologic Institute and the Atlantic Council. She later gained experience in sustainability in
the luxury sector and helped five leading Swiss watch brands achieve top rankings in the landmark 2018 World
Wildlife Federation industry report. Following this she served as Senior Strategic Advisor to the Executive Director
of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
In 2020, Aurelia was appointed the inaugural Global Head of Sustainability at Breitling. Since then, she has used
her cross-sectoral experience in sustainability to develop an industry-leading strategy that aligns across the
company’s sustainability pillars of product, planet, people, prosperity, and progress.
In 2021, she was named a Catalyst by collaboratio helvetica, a profound, multi-month learning and design
process for particularly committed people working in the space of sustainability. In 2023, she was named a
Responsible Leader by the BMW Foundation, a community of purpose working jointly towards a more peaceful, just,
and sustainable future.