Luis Schwarz
Founder and CEO, Schwarz Care Institute, and, former Chair, Healthy Staff Working Group, World Bank
Luis Schwarz worked as a Senior Finance Officer and Senior Financial Management Specialist at the World Bank from October 2000 to June 2022. He dedicated 42 years of his life as an MBA in Finance and as a CPA in Accounting supporting projects and programs in 52 countries in Latin America, Africa, and Eastern Europe during his long career in Multilateral International Financial Institutions. In parallel, his passion was promoting Wellness and Wellbeing programs for his colleagues from 2007 until his retirement from the World Bank. He was committed to reinventing himself and sharing his new passion with his colleagues as part of an Institutional Community-Based Voluntary Approach.
As a result of his effort, he became certified as a Master-practitioner on Neuro-Linguistic Programming and Clinical Hypnosis from Bennet-Stellar University in Washington State, certified on Behavioral Medicine from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, certified on different areas of Nutrition from Wageningen University in The Netherlands, Harvard University, and University of California, Berkeley. He later became a Mental Health First Aider at Work and a certified instructor on behalf of the National Council for Behavioral Health.
Luis’s new passion has been building mental and physical health awareness and prevention based on the importance of creating a life-balanced environment for ourselves both at home and work for people to flourish and grow. He uses practical and scientific-based methods and techniques to improve mind-body connection and overall emotional intelligence and well-being, with emphasis on the importance of developing day to day, interactive and experiential tools to assist you in developing a life-change experience.
In 2020, after the initial impact COVID had on people and their working environment, Luis representing the World Bank Group Staff Association as Chair of the Healthy Staff Group, had his first encounter with the Harvard SHINE team and supported the implementation of a comprehensive study of World Bank employees’ wellness program. The study showed how COVID affected people’s physical and mental health. The results, presented at the Harvard Shine Summit 2021, were impressive, shining a light on employees current well-being and recommended measures to implement necessary changes.
His commitment to improve people’s wellness and flourishing opportunities was translated in the creation of the Schwarz Care Institute as a non-profit organization last January 2022, and in July he became the Institute’s CEO.