Heinz Karrer steps down as economiesuisse president in September
At the beginning of the year, economiesuisse President Heinz Karrer decided to hand over his office at the end of September after twelve years on the board of the business umbrella organization and seven years as its president. The Board Committee unanimously recommends Christoph Mäder to the Board for election as the new President of economiesuisse.
Heinz Karrer has been on the board of the business umbrella organization economiesuisse since 2008, and has been its president since 2013. His fourth term of office on this body will regularly end in September 2020. Heinz Karrer decided at the beginning of the year not to run for another three years. He will thus also relinquish the presidency in the fall after seven years.
Heinz Karrer took over the presidency of economiesuisse in a difficult phase for the association. Resignations at the top of the association, the announced departure of a major member association, and a lost referendum were major challenges for the association. After taking office, Heinz Karrer quickly started the process of filling the position of director. With the election of Monika Rühl as the new Chairwoman of the Executive Board and further management appointments, organizational stability and calm returned step by step. The association was able to realign itself and return to its original operational strength and professionalism.
Positive balance under the presidency of Heinz Karrer
During his seven years as president, Heinz Karrer has consolidated and further developed the association's internal structures and processes and strengthened member involvement and loyalty, for example by creating new decision-making bodies with executives from the member organizations. In this way, he has succeeded in giving the association's decisions and positions broader support and creating an important prerequisite for greater unity within the umbrella organization, economiesuisse writes. In addition, governance was improved under Karrer's tenure by initiating a strategy committee and a personnel committee within the board.
Above all, however, Heinz Karrer has strengthened economiesuisse's genuine role as the umbrella organization of the Swiss economy by accelerating the development of the association's communications, according to economiesuisse's further assessment. This is also reflected in the positive course of many referendum campaigns: Of the 19 referendum campaigns that economiesuisse has conducted under Heinz Karrer, the association was able to successfully conclude 17 campaigns in favor of Switzerland as a business location - most recently, for example, against the self-determination initiative, for tax reform and AHV financing, and for the implementation of an amendment to the EU weapons directive (Schengen/Dublin). Only twice was economiesuisse unsuccessful: on the mass immigration initiative and on corporate tax reform III.
Intensified exchange with politics, business and the public
Finally, Heinz Karrer has launched a new "Business and Society" program, with which the association will stimulate and intensify long-term dialog with the population about the economy through various initiatives. At the same time, the aim is for business representatives to talk directly with people to find out what concerns them and where the shoe pinches. With great personal commitment, Heinz Karrer himself has also cultivated open dialog with politicians, the media and the public - always respectful, but also always persistent and, above all, fact-based. In this way, he successfully represented the concerns of companies in numerous important dossiers and thus increased the association's ability to assert itself.
"It has been an exciting and interesting time for me over all these years, but above all a great honor to be able to represent this important organization to politics, business and the public. I am grateful for that," he says looking back. Now Heinz Karrer wants to turn to other professional activities from October 1 - i.e. after the referendum on the termination initiative.
Christoph Mäder to be successor
At its meeting today, the economiesuisse Board Committee considered the succession to Heinz Karrer and is now unanimously recommending that the Board elect Christoph Mäder (born 1959) as the new President at its next meeting. Christoph Mäder knows economiesuisse extremely well, having already been a member of the Board Committee from 2008 to 2019 and Vice President of the association from 2011 to 2017. Christoph Mäder grew up in the canton of Aargau and qualified as a lawyer after studying at the University of Basel. After working as a research assistant in constitutional and administrative law at the University of Basel, he spent several years with the Aargau Chamber of Commerce and Industry before serving as lead legal counsel for Sandoz and Novartis from 1992.
In 2000, Christoph Mäder joined the Syngenta Executive Committee, where he was responsible for various corporate functions - including Legal, Tax, Patents & Trademarks, Health/Safety & Environment, Governance, Risk Management & Compliance - and for all Group activities in Switzerland until 2018. During his time at Syngenta, Christoph Mäder also served for many years as President and Board Member of scienceindustries, the Swiss trade association of the chemical and pharmaceutical industry.
Christoph Mäder is a member of the Board of Directors of various national and international companies, such as Bâloise Holding AG, Ems-Chemie Holding AG and Lonza Group AG. Since 2019, he has been a partner in the law and notary firm Becker Gurini Hanhart Vogt in Lenzburg. In addition, he is a member of various advisory boards and also holds functions in non-profit organizations.
