February

2021

Revealing
the Dots
Eleven interviews with someof the most influential figuresin swissnex’s 20-year history

Table of Contents“We wanted to invent a new diplomacy”
“swissnex was a breakthrough idea”

Charles Kleiber

4

Xavier Comtesse

6“We developed the initial idea for a
Jeffrey Huang
physical-digital consulate 20 years ago”10
Muriel Waldvogel“The idea was to build bridges
Thierry Lombard
between science and business”16“It was an example of public-private
Paul Smyke
partnership before the term even existed.”19“I hope there will be more initiatives
Evelyn Lager
like swissnex”22“Something new and different
could emerge”25
Christoph von Arb“We were seeding relationships that very
Pascal Marmieroften grew into successful partnerships”28“A two-way exchange for innovativeideas between Switzerland and the US.”32
Felix Moesner“The only constant at swissnex is change”

Christian Simm35

“We call swissnex our base camp. It was really the foundation of it all.”39
Jordi Montserrat

2Whether it is how swissnex was pitched to the Swiss government, how
it gained initial backing from the private sector, or how the design of ourbuilding gave rise to a new field of architecture, the swissnex journey isn’ta typical one. In 2020, as part of our 20th anniversary campaign nex20,
we embarked on a series of interviews to discover this story from theperspective of some of swissnex’s most pivotal figures. We are pleased
to release our collection, Revealing the Dots, which gives unprecedented
insights into the inception of swissnex and its development into the global
network it is today.
swissnex Boston
Benjamin Bollmann, CEO
Jonas Brunschwig, Deputy CEO
Anour Esa, Communications Manager
Alexandra Alteio, Communications Manager

3

“We wanted to invent a new diplomacy”
Former Swiss State Secretary Charles Kleiber reflects on 20 years of swissnex, andimagines a future Switzerland that tackles global challenges head-on.

Charles Kleiber: In 2000, the world wasin flux with the fall of communism, thecollapse of the Soviet Union, and thedevelopment of the internet, and with it theinternationalization and the informatizationof exchanges and communication. Traditional
diplomacy was confronted with a new reality
and new actors, and needed to invest in new
instruments and new forms of cooperation.
Diplomacy was less and less responsible for
defending national interests, and more andmore a facilitator for an exchange of ideas,
for the creation of added value, and forlinking different sectors of activity.

In 1997, Charles Kleiber was appointed State
Secretary for Education and Research of the
Swiss Confederation. He remained at this post
until his retirement in 2007. During Kleiber’s
tenure as State Secretary, the presence of
Science and Technology Offices in Swissembassies abroad increased dramatically, andhe oversaw the creation of SHARE, the Swiss
House for Advanced Research and Education— which would later become known asswissnex. He spoke with us about that time,and reflected on what the future may hold for
Switzerland and swissnex.
swissnex Boston: How did SHARE comeabout? Did it emerge as a result of a need,an opportunity, or both?

4

As such, there was political and economic
pressure in Bern to create something
new. This pressure came mainly from theParliament, and was something whichcrossed over all political tendencies. There
was a real effort among the MPs to unite andbuild something unique. But of course, there
was uncertainty about what was to be built.
What motivated and led you to support
the vision that became SHARE and thenswissnex?
We wanted to invent a new diplomacy. We
had this idea that technology would solve
all the world’s problems and that science
was the universal language. We believedthat globalization is driven by technologicaland financial achievement, which induces
systemic and organizational changes. But the
new diplomacy that would emerge needed
new places to unfold. SHARE was one ofthose places, the very first of its kind. It
reconciled the need to be global and local at
the same time. It was a realistic and pragmatic
utopia, and a bet on the future.

be proud of that trust. Right now the global
system is in a phase of profound transition
and uncertainty. What do you see as the roleof swissnex in this new world?

So this is what we did, and it was good. Xavier
Comtesse, who was a Science Counselor at
the Embassy in Washington, came up with
the idea for SHARE and really was the builder
of it. Thierry Lombard, a prominent Swissphilanthropist, saw that there was potential
and gave the money in order to buy theproperty for SHARE. Then came ChristianSimm, who helped coin the term swissnex,
and all the rest.

Today, the question for me is what is thenext step? What does Switzerland haveto say about the global challenges facing
humanity, like inequality, justice, climate,and democracy? There are many young
researchers and artists in Switzerland tacklingthese challenges, and there are a lot of people
in universities and institutions in Switzerlandwith bright ideas. For me, the purpose ofswissnex then is to be all over the world,
amplifying those voices and helping to elevatequestions which address these global issues.

What are some of the highlights you
remember and what are you most proud ofin relation to swissnex?
I’m proud of the fact that swissnex exists.
Because if it exists, it is only because of trust.
When you are in my position, you are theState Secretary in Bern and you have people
who are all over the world, the only way tomanage that is to have more contact withthem. So the choice of these people and all
the mechanisms which link each of us to theothers are very important.
The construction of swissnex is based ontrust. So based on that, I would say it’s agood mechanism. I’m sure that the otherpeople who were in this adventure had thesame feeling — that it was important, andthat they had a role to play, and that people
like me could trust them. I think all of us canAt the time of swissnex’s founding, the ruleof the game was multilateralism. We had thebelief that there was progress, that humanity
could be more just, that people would havemore knowledge. We believed that the truth
mattered. Knowledge by proof has the power
to bring people together.
But this is no longer the situation today.
Truth has disappeared, and multilateralism
is disappearing. But swissnex is anchored inscience. So one of the most important things
that swissnex can do now is to steer back tothat foundation and show that knowledge
by proof is at the center of our civilization.
swissnex is the tool by which Swiss
universities, researchers, and artists can bepresent in the rest of the world.

Charles Kleiber

5

“swissnex was a breakthrough idea”
Xavier Comtesse, the founding Director of swissnex Boston/SHARE, talks with us aboutbuilding the project from the ground up, its relevance 20 years ago, and what still makes it
special today.

In 1996, Xavier Comtesse was a Science
Counselor at the Embassy of Switzerland in
Washington, DC when he and a few otherindividuals came up with the crazy idea forcreating a science consulate in the Boston
area. It could serve as a hub for scientists,
researchers, entrepreneurs, and students togather and create new, innovative ideas.
In those years in the diplomatic community
however, that kind of idea would only get
you raised eyebrows and shaking heads. But
Comtesse was stubborn, and made it his
mission to bring that vision to fruition. And
so in October of 2000, SHARE, the Swiss
House for Advanced Research and Education— which would eventually become swissnex
Boston — opened in Cambridge.
Twenty years later, some of us at swissnex
Boston spoke with Xavier about that time, andwhat made swissnex such a disruptive force inthe diplomatic world.
swissnex Boston: How did the idea forswissnex come about?
Xavier Comtesse: It started in 1996, when
I was working at the Swiss Embassy inWashington. At that time, it was mostly
diplomats in charge of science andtechnology affairs, and so Heinrich Ursprung— the State Secretary for Education
and Research at that time — sent me to
Washington to rethink what it meant to be ascientific attaché.

6

I quickly discovered that Washington reallywasn’t the right place for Switzerland’s
scientific attachés. It was a hub for policy,
not research and innovation. I reported backto Heinrich Ursprung and informed him that
our science and technology representation
shouldn’t be in Washington, but rather in San
Francisco and Boston, where cutting edge
research and innovation was taking place.
After I had sent this letter to Heinrich
Ursprung, he was interested and asked meto come up with a concept. It took me awhile, but I eventually developed a narrativearound brain drain. At that time, there weremany Swiss scientists who left Switzerlandand didn’t return. There were more than two
thousand post-doctoral students of Swiss
origin conducting research in the US, and at
an estimated cost of CHF 1 million per Ph.D.
grown in Switzerland, that was more than
CHF 2 billion in underutilized Swiss assets.
My idea was that we could combat Swissbrain drain by creating a position in San
Francisco and Boston that would be
responsible for helping Swiss scientists andresearchers come to the United States forexchanges and then also incentivize themto return to Switzerland so that the Swissgovernment might see a return on thatinvestment. This narrative was primarily
to sell this idea to the Swiss government,
because nobody wanted swissnex at thattime.
So how did you take this from idea toreality?
Well, it was a pretty unorthodox idea topresent to Swiss diplomats, so I first had adiscussion with some people at the US State
Department to gauge their interest in theidea. They were very enthusiastic about itand offered their support if we opened ascience consulate in Boston. Although wewould have consular status, we wouldn’t
need to be responsible for diplomatic
services. I had them draft a white paper withthe details, and then sent it to Bern.

The Swiss government liked the idea, butthey had reservations. Christoph von Arb, thehead of international affairs at SERI at thattime, was instrumental in getting the formal
approval from the Swiss Government. Oneof the other obstacles was getting funding,so I went to Geneva to see my friend Thierry
Lombard, a prominent Swiss philanthropist.
He was very enthusiastic about the project,
and we received a generous grant. If you
talked with him today, I think he would saythat it has been one of the best experiencesin his life.
Let’s take a step back. Can you tell us how
you first got involved working with the
Swiss government?
When I moved to the government in 1992,
they hired me because I was a startup guy.
I had started three companies in Geneva inthe 80s. One of my objectives was to workwith the universities and the private sector tohelp universities to open their minds to civilsociety and to the economy. Our approach
was to promote startups coming fromuniversities in Switzerland, because thenthe professors and the universities would be
invested in tech-transfer and to open up to
the economy.
Today, Switzerland has made a lot of real
progress in innovation, and is ranked number
one in innovation in the world now. But it’smore that we have gotten better at talking
about innovation. In 1992, Switzerland was in
the 15th rank on the World Economic Forum’s
Innovation Index. Finland was number one.

Xavier Comtesse

7

The State Secretary wanted me to findout how the indicators worked and why
Switzerland was so low, despite being sucha formidable hub of scientific research anddiscovery.
I went to the WEF in Geneva and soon
figured out that there were something like
150 indicators that comprised the index on
innovation. Forty percent were quantitative
indicators, and an astonishing sixty percent
were qualitative indicators. I realized that inorder to get a boost in our innovation ranking,we just needed to improve the qualitative
indicators: our perception. swissnex was partof improving that perception.
When we opened swissnex, we had 57
countries who sent official delegations. Manyof these delegations said that Switzerland
was excellent in innovation, and as such,
we went up in the rankings! Something I
discovered while in the States is that there
are always two temperature readings: realand perceived. I think that applies in life andin business as well. Perception is often more
important than reality. When you realize that,you can write your own story, but with proof.
swissnex was part of this story. Switzerland
may not have been designed to havebreakthrough ideas, but I think swissnex wasa breakthrough idea.
Let’s jump to swissnex Boston’s building:what made the physical space of swissnex
so unique?
One element was the architecture andinterior design. The very young Swissarchitects I chose, Waldvogel + Huang,elected for a lofty open office design. There
was no guard desk, there were no metal
detectors or protective barriers. It wasvery much a departure from the layout ofa traditional consulate. A crucial elementof the space was that we wanted to not
only create a physical space for people togather, but also a virtual space too. And
that’s where our video conference wall camein. In 2000, there was no zoom, and video

8

calling was not a widespread thing. So for
us to have it at swissnex was fantastic, anda big sell for partners looking to utilize thespace. The building actually won an award
from the Associated General Contractorsof Massachusetts for the combination of
innovative building materials and integrationof technology.
You clearly accomplished a lot in thosedays; what are you most proud of?
Starting it. There are more than 600 young
Swiss people who one day worked at aswissnex. That was not my vision at the time,
but it was the most important result. It means
600 people have had an adventure like that.
Before swissnex, when people in Switzerland
wanted to have adventures in science,
there was no structure of support. It was areally lonely experience. swissnex made it acollective experience.
I’m always proud to find out that some people
who jump into the swissnex adventure havecrazy lives after that. It gives them so muchopportunity. This freedom of choosing,
doing, thinking, especially breakthroughthinking. It’s very powerful. People would
come to swissnex and be inspired by
the atmosphere. And 20 years later, that
atmosphere is still there. It’s a place where
you can think differently. I’m very proud.
What were some funny moments for you
while at swissnex?
In the beginning, a lot of people andcompanies came to visit swissnex. A big
Swiss bank was one of those visits. Oneof their directors came and visited us in
December of 2000. During his visit, I pitched
the idea of an internship program to him.
The bank would fund an IT intern to work at
swissnex for six months, and in exchange, wewould arrange for them to take courses at
MIT or wherever they wanted.
He liked the idea, so I told him I’d send him
an email with the details. He told me that

Comtesse (back right corner of table) hosts a delegation at SHARE in 2000

his secretary would read the email to him.
That took me by surprise and I gave him ahard time about it. At that time in 2000, mostleaders of Swiss companies were still very old
fashioned when it came to the internet, andviewed emails as letters. They dictated what
they wanted to say to their secretary, and thesecretary typed the email in a very formalmanner, like a letter! But the next day, hepersonally sent me an email, telling me it was
his first ever email he had written himself. It
gave me a good chuckle.
Did you have any moments with partners
that were a sort of engineered serendipity?
All the time. One very important thing withswissnex was the contact — the physicalcontact. Anytime somebody traveled to
Boston or San Francisco, we set up meetings.
We had the right contacts, we spared timeand money for everyone in science — fromstartups to big companies.

At that time when we started, Novartis was
not established in Boston. Everyone was still
focusing on San Francisco and Silicon Valley.
But after a visit to swissnex and Boston,Novartis’ director of R&D mentioned to me
that they had overlooked Boston, and thatthey had to establish a presence there.
So one of my first tasks during that year
was to help Novartis come into Boston.
They of course knew people, but we had
the connections to the administration, andmany of the big players. Now they have a big
presence here.
For all these reasons we talked about, I think
Boston was the best place where we could’ve
started this. It’s a land of promise.

Xavier Comtesse9

“We developed the initial idea for aphysical-digital consulate 20 years ago”
Swiss architects Jeffrey Huang and Muriel Waldvogel talk about how designing andconstructing the swissnex Boston building in 2000 changed their lives and helped giverise to a new field of research: convergent architecture.

Architects Jeffrey Huang and Muriel
Waldvogel were young professors ofarchitecture and design when they first met
Xavier Comtesse in Cambridge in 1999. A
few weeks after meeting him, they officiallybecame the architects of the world’s firstscience consulate, a project that would win
them an award, accelerate their careers, andpush the boundaries of architecture for many
years to come.
After building swissnex, they founded anarchitecture practice in Massachusetts
in 2000, and are now based in Lausanne,
Switzerland. Huang is now the Directorof the Institute of Architecture at EPFL in
Lausanne, and Waldvogel is the Principal of
their architecture practice, Convergeo. We
spoke with them to hear about the processof designing and building swissnex in Boston
twenty years ago, and how it has impacted
their careers since.

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swissnex Boston: How did you first meet
Xavier Comtesse?
Jeffrey Huang (JH): Muriel and I moved from
Switzerland to Boston in 1995. We were bothteaching at Harvard; Muriel was at Harvard
College, and I was a young assistant professor
at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.
We were also very engaged in the local Swiss
community around Cambridge and Boston.
We were co-presidents of the Boston chapterof the ETH alumni association, and we would
organize dinners, meetings, and events10

to get the Swiss scientific diaspora in thearea together. As a result of some of thesemeetings, we met Patrick Steineman, a fellow
ETH alumnus doing his PhD at MIT. Together
we wrote a paper where we developed aproposal for creating a virtual community for
the Swiss scientific diaspora. In 1999, we sent
it to the Swiss Embassy in Washington DC,
asking for support.

How did you wind up as the architects for
SHARE/swissnex?
JH: Our first meeting with Xavier was
extremely inspiring. He talked about hisplans for the Swiss House for Advanced
Research and Education (SHARE), and the
problem of Swiss brain drain. We discussed
the possibility of joining physical and virtual
communities together, the idea of building aphysical Swiss house, and at the end of themeeting, he proposed that we should be thearchitects of the future Swiss house.

A few weeks later, I received a phone callfrom someone called Xavier Comtesse, who
had read the report for the proposal and was
visiting Cambridge and wanted to meet withus. So we set up a meeting with him in a little
cafe at the Harvard Barker Center. This is aplace where we later had many meetings, andit eventually became what we would call the“knowledge café.” The café itself was round,with no traditional walls, lots of glass, andincredible light.

We were very young at the time and notsuper experienced — so the fact that he had
so much faith in young Swiss talent was reallyquite incredible. Usually in Switzerland, youhave to make a proposal in order to build aconsulate. But for swissnex, we just built it. It
was quite a leap of faith on Xavier’s part. We
are still very grateful to him for giving us that
opportunity. In the meetings that followed,
we developed the initial idea for a physicaldigital consulate, and integrated a notion that
the Swiss House could be a “global village.”
We wanted a physical place where people
would meet, a café, and an arena, but thenalso to create a virtual commons, a place tofoster a virtual community, if you will.
Later, we introduced some of the first designs
to Thierry Lombard and Patrick Odier, themain sponsors of the whole project, and they
were very supportive from the beginning. I
think they were very courageous, bold, andvisionary in encouraging us to imagine a new

Jeffrey Huang + Muriel Waldvogel

11their knowledge virtually back to Switzerland
via lectures, seminars, joint events, meetings,
and so forth, and walk back out.
What were some of the inspirations andleading concepts in the design of the space?

kind of architecture: a consulate functioning
not only as a scientific outpost, but also as aninterface — a portal for the Swiss scientificdiaspora to connect back to Switzerland andreverse Swiss brain drain.

Muriel Waldvogel (MW): One concept wasto put an equal emphasis on making this as
much a virtual space as it was a physicalspace. When we made the renovations,
we had to leave the facade, because it was
historical. But on the inside, we ripped thebuilding naked and made every single wall a
glass “media wall.” We wanted to link manyof these media walls to other locations,transporting the wall to somewhere else in theworld.

What was truly innovative about it wasthat we didn’t actually need to bring Swiss
scientists physically back to Switzerland. It
functioned instead almost like a wormhole: aportal where scientists could walk in, transfer

We didn’t want to transport the people,
but rather the space. It’s a different thingcompared to Zoom today. This wasn’t peopleto-people — it was space-to-space. In theentrance for example, the large first wall was

3D concept for digital lobby inside of swissnex

Electrical blueprint of the SHARE building in 2000

12

sometimes linked to the lobby of ETH Zurich,among other locations. Because of that, we
had to design the geometry of the space tofollow the rules of perspective and take into
account how the camera viewed our space.
A second concept was intimacy, which wasreflected in how we designed the layout of
the building, which included a smaller alcove
called the arena which would serve as amore intimate space for smaller group work
sessions. Down to the smallest details, wereally wanted this to be a flexible and intimate
space. For example, we designed the wiring
for the outlets, cameras, and the projectors
at the same time as we designed the space. It
was part of the initial structure, and as suchit created a different level of intimacy. In thearena for example, you could just hook up
your computer and work with eight people ina more intimate setting.

View from inside the building during renovation

A third driving concept was transparency.
We wanted every wall to be transparent, andeverything was in glass. At that time, it wasalso a symbolic gesture, because we werein the middle of the banking crisis where
Switzerland was behind a lot of scandals
and diplomacy was being conducted behindclosed doors. So the idea of making a
consulate completely transparent of course
was not an easy idea to get approved, but it
was something we all wanted to try, and so
we went with it.
A final concept that we wanted to integrate
was a sense of ambiguity. We made sure thatthe building materials we used would makethe space unique, and non-traditional. All
the materials we chose weren’t something
you’d ever normally choose for a consulate.
The wood floor for instance is very large
planks of birch. By picking wider planks ofa non-traditional wood, we wanted to makeView inside the building post-renovation

Panorama inside the SHARE office, circa 2003

Jeffrey Huang + Muriel Waldvogel

13You could hear everybody talking and every
phone call from Xavier’s office was open to
everyone. That was quite new I think, and theneighbors loved it, because they were afraid it
was going to be a black box.
You’ve mentioned that you were involved
with the second floor addition in 2008 as
well. Can you talk a little bit how you wereinvolved in that process?
swissnex’s interior in 2000 post-renovations

the space look almost rural, something you
would not typically have in a public building.
We wanted to make the space elegant andmodern, and yet feel like a place where you’dwant to hang out and stay.
JH: The space was also ambiguous, because
it was not clear whether it was an office ora gallery, or even an exhibition room. And
I think it’s that ambiguity that creates thismoment of estrangement: when you comein, you stop and think twice. It creates thisincreased perceptual moment of recognizing,“oh, this is something different.”

MW: We got involved the second timearound for the second floor addition in 2008.
Christoph von Arb called me and said thatthey had about 200–300 events a year,
and they needed more separate dedicatedoffice space, which was a positive thing,as it indicated success and growth. So we
designed a second floor in collaboration withPeter Darlow of Darlow Christ Architects.
At the beginning of the design with Christoph,
we decided to do something that was again
glass-heavy, like a lightbox, similar to the

MW: And that didn’t just come from ourdesign intent, it was also the context. The
neighborhood didn’t want a consulate, andXavier really wanted openness, so even theglass walls had one centimeter gaps between
them. We didn’t close them so you could hearconversation. It was all this play with privacy
and intimacy that was not only visual, but also
audible.

Installation of transparent glass panels

14

Second floor addition of swissnex Boston

Huang (left) and Waldvogel (right) sitting inside swissnex during the renovation process in 2000

interior of downstairs, only turned inside-out.
We also incorporated a green roof with thesecond floor, set back a few meters so that it
didn’t visually crowd the street corner.
20 years later, what does this project mean
to you, and how did it impact your careers?
JH: Before Swiss House, we had beenworking at Harvard on this theoretical ideaof convergence of physical and virtual space.
And swissnex/Swiss House gave us an
opportunity to apply those ideas and realize
some of those ideas in a real project. Onceswissnex was built, we featured the project inan article in Harvard Business Review, whichbecame a seminal article on future space
where physical and virtual spaces converge.
That concept of future space then became
the foundation of our subsequent researchand of our design firm Convergeo, which wasreally created for designing the convergenceof physical and virtual space.
After swissnex, we designed several digitalphysical projects that were inspired or
built on the swissnex concept. There was abuilding for Harvard’s Center for Hellenic
Studies in Washington DC, concept storesand experimental museums for Rolex, andalso a series of future offices for mostly Swissfirms, such as CreditSuisse and SwissRe,
which integrate virtual and physical work.
These projects were developed after swissnex
and considered futuristic.
Today, ironically, with the current pandemic
due to COVID-19, the interest in virtual
offices and virtual museums, in virtual
stores and virtual universities, this wholeidea of convergence of physical and virtualarchitectures is coming back full-circle, andfinally becoming mainstream 20 years later.
Designing and building swissnex became thefoundation for our careers and also for ourarchitectural practice. I’m also a professor,
and the reason I’m at EPFL now is because I
met Patrick Aebischer, the president of EPFL
then at swissnex in 2004–2005, and throughour interactions at swissnex, he convinced meof the uniqueness and dynamism of the EPFL
he was about to create.
So the effects of this project were notjust architectural, but we also met reallyinteresting people from all walks of life.
swissnex truly was a harbinger for many new
things to come.

Jeffrey Huang + Muriel Waldvogel

15

“The idea was to build bridges between
science and business”
Thierry Lombard, former Managing Partner at Swiss private bank Lombard Odier,
explores how Lombard Odier’s gift to finance the construction of the swissnex
Boston building led the development of a global network championing publicprivate partnership.

Commemorative plaque on display at swissnex Boston

Twenty years ago, Thierry Lombard, Patrick
Odier, and their partners made the decision toinvest in the long-term growth and economic
prosperity of Switzerland by seed-funding
swissnex — a risky but innovative idea forscience diplomacy. Over the course of 20
years, that gift gave rise to a global swissnex
Network connecting Switzerland and theworld’s most innovative and technologicallyadvanced cities. We spoke with Lombard
about his role in helping to make swissnex areality.

16

swissnex Boston: What motivated you toembark on the swissnex adventure?
Thierry Lombard: There were multiple
elements. One was the Latsis Bavois Forum,in which we invited Swiss academic, political,
and economic leaders to the table todiscuss and debate the challenges to Swiss
competitiveness. We knew that if Switzerland
wanted to stay competitive, we needed tobuild bridges between science and business.
Charles Kleiber and Xavier Comtesse werepart of these meetings and we continued tostay in touch with them.
In 1998, when Patrick Odier and I had long
been thinking about the bicentennial of ourbank, Xavier and Charles’s idea of “scientificoutposts” landed on our table. For our200th anniversary, we really wanted to dosomething to support Switzerland’s longterm growth and economic prosperity, tolook toward the future, and not so much at
the past.
The SHARE project, as it was called backthen, matched that sentiment. It was aninnovative idea bringing the economic, theacademic, and potentially even the political
together.
As we talked about it with Charles, we
agreed that the project needed a boost,which seemed appropriate for us to grant inrelation to our bicentennial. That eventually
led us to find the small grocery store thatstood where swissnex Boston is right now
and receive, after a few legal hiccups, theauthorization to transform the space for thedevelopment of SHARE.
Why do you think this project was
important for Switzerland 20 years ago?
It allowed for us to continue the dialogue
between these different Swiss sectors,
working towards supporting Switzerland
and the image and influence of Switzerland
abroad. This project was also interesting

in its potential to help counteract theadverse effects of brain drain, wherein the
Swiss abroad found themselves not having
the knowledge or the tools to return to
Switzerland. What’s more, it represented
this desire to work on a project with younger
generations, rather than the traditional sideof academia, business, and politics.
We just calculated our average age atswissnex Boston and we’re 31. It’s young!
Yes, and I think that’s good. In a world thatchanges so much, it is vital to have balance
between generations. If there are three
generations operating in the same company, I
think all three can yield value, but I also think
we should reverse the power distribution alittle bit, by instead giving the power to theyounger generation and relying on the older
one for its experience, help and support.
Today it has become a necessity to find abalance between creativity, innovation, andexperience.
Do you remember a bit about thediscussions around the creation ofswissnex?
One thing that always amused me was that
we supported the steps and procedure of
the project, particularly by giving financial
support, but somehow we still had a lot of
trouble coordinating or collaborating better
between the various stakeholders involved.

Thierry Lombard

17

At one point I said that while there areprobably financial resources up for grabs,
they all needed to come together with aproject under a common vision, or else thoseresources wouldn’t be there. Those were easy
times in the sense that I had the opportunity
to put resources into the purchase of thishouse and in the support of this project. The
ground was a little relaxed, and the landing
was a little softer at the time when we moved
this project forward. I have to admit thatwithout Xavier and Charles, it would havebeen impossible to make the project happen.
You have been involved with swissnex for
20 years, from near and far. What are you
most proud of in the last 20 years?
What I find interesting about swissnex
is that it is an illustration of a successful
collaboration between the public and private
sectors. In the end the resources put forward
by the private sector were able to provide
a launchpad for 20 years of public-private
collaboration via swissnex.
Do you have a highlight that stands out toyou?
What interested and pleased me is that after
Boston there was San Francisco, and after
San Francisco there was the development of
the global network. I am glad that the project
has developed and evolved. I think what
Boston did very well at the beginning was tosurround itself with local anchors. It createdthis dual dimension — one belonging to theswissnex Network, and one directed more
locally.
A regret for me is that swissnex has probably
been too unknown in Switzerland. Perhaps
swissnex should have a bigger presence
and work on its visibility and reputationin Switzerland. People at swissnex haveinformation and readings of approaches andprojects that potentially could be more andbetter highlighted in Switzerland.

18

Communication has always been a big
topic for us. Some people think we’re aconsulate, some think we’re a startup
incubator, some think we’re an art gallery…
These multiple identities allow us toattract completely different audiences
and connect people in surprising ways.
But this is also what makes it difficult tocommunicate about swissnex.
Yes, and perhaps it should stay that way. It is
exactly this diversity that allows for creativity— which may not be a bad thing after all.
Looking to the future, swissnex has thecapability to be a sense-maker — a platform
to read and shape the future for Switzerland.
It will require staying on the cutting edgeof innovation and better coordination at the
network level. Let’s protect the originality,
quality, and continuation of this project in thenext 20 years.

“It was an example of public-private partnership
before the term even existed.”
Paul Smyke, Senior Advisor to the Chairman at the World Economic Forum USA, recounts
his time as an advisor to swissnex in its early days.

Smyke speaking at a WEF event ( photo courtesy of the WEF)

In 1998, Paul Smyke, a key figure at the World
Economic Forum (WEF), moved to Boston
after spending most of his adult life living
in Switzerland. By chance during a meetingwith the Swiss Ambassador in Washington,
Smyke met Xavier Comtesse when he wasdeveloping the idea for the Swiss House of
Advanced Research and Education (SHARE)
that would later become swissnex Boston.

Switzerland, and decided to get involved.
The project would start small and scrappy,
but 20 years later he knows that it was awinning idea. Today, Smyke serves in various
roles at the WEF, including Senior Advisor to
the Chairman, Head of North America, andMember of the Executive Committee. We
spoke with him earlier this year to hear more
about his journey with swissnex.

After hearing Comtesse’s pitch, Smyke knew
this was going to be a game-changer for

Paul Smyke

19swissnex Boston: How did you find out
about swissnex?
Paul Smyke: It was the late 90s and I had
just recently moved to Boston. I went down
to Washington to meet with the Swiss
Ambassador at that time, and he told me
about the new science attaché, who was
cooking up some kind of idea for Switzerland
in Boston and that I should speak with him.
That attaché was Xavier Comtesse.
While I’m pragmatic and rooted in reality, I
feel like I can recognize a good idea when I
see one. And this seemed like a really goodidea. It takes a crazy person like Xavier
usually to come up with an idea like that,and you combine that with the vision andfinancial backing of Thierry Lombard andPatrick Odier, and it becomes reality.
Thierry told me that when they were thinking
about their 200th anniversary, they felt aneed to build something that would be an
investment in the future of Switzerland. His
and Odier’s support of this project says a
lot about them. Xavier of course was the
disruptive and driving force intellectually andenergy-wise that was needed.
So when you combined Xavier’s energy,
Lombard and Odier’s vision and resources,
and former State Secretary Charles Kleiber’s
support, the result was incredibly powerful.
swissnex couldn’t have happened withoutthem. It was an example of public-private
partnership before the term even existed.
In the WEF context, we’d long been
proponents of public-private partnership, so I
was happy to see that embodied in swissnex.
I give credit to the bankers but I also have togive credit to the government for saying yes,and going along with it because that tookcourage on their part.
So the government just said yes, just likethat?
Not exactly. Of course there was hesitation.
There was always a tension between the20

amount of disruption and just how disruptive
this was compared to traditional diplomacy.
While there were people inside the Swiss
Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA)
who were excited, there were others who
were more reticent.
One moment I will never forget: the eyes ofsome of the senior officials from Bern who
showed up for the inauguration 20 years
ago. When one official in particular walked
in the building, his eyes went wide — andnot necessarily with excitement. I could
imagine he was thinking, “wait, where’s theguard desk? Where’s the glass barrier?”
You could tell that it was a bit of a shockfor him. Some of us considered that a plus,
but there were definitely currents within
traditional government where it took a lot ofadjustment.
What’s a fun fact people don’t usually know
about your connection with swissnex?
I was the acting director of swissnex forabout six months between Xavier andChristoph von Arb. It’s a little-known fact.
At that time, Pascal Marmier and the others
were all 20 somethings and I had the meritof being a 30 something with a legitimate
connection to the WEF.
So when there was a six month period where
they needed an interim director, they had me
step in. Nobody gave me a mandate, it wasbasically don’t let the place burn down andmake sure that things go smoothly. I think I
signed some checks a couple times a month.
It was very much a caretaker function, afigurehead if you will.
What was the rest of your involvement
like?
Beyond my brief stint as acting director, I wasan advisor for a few years, which gave me a
bit of an internal perspective. I was able toweld together a connection with the WEF
and create some networks. Together, we
hosted a lot of social things, and then post-

Davos Summit briefings with Boston area
participants. All in all, the conditions werecreated in those first few years where the restof the story could unfold over the next 20.
I recognize a lot of parallels between life at
the WEF and what swissnex was trying to do.
There was a notion of trying to gather people
together, break down barriers, break down
silos, and create conversations that previously
weren’t being had. That was some of theexperience and perspective that I could bringto the table. I think that explains in part theenthusiasm that I had when I first heard of theidea for swissnex.
What was the building process like?
The renovation of the building was a huge
undertaking. You can’t underestimate thelegal and financial costs of it all, given how
strange the architecture was in transforming
the laundromat and grocery into that space.
I think the architects Jeff Huang and Muriel
Waldvogel deserve a huge amount of credit.
They were really a visionary husband-wife
team.
I must say, I don’t really consider myself
visionary. I’m sort of a highly pragmatic guy.
My feet are firmly entrenched in reality andI tend to live my life that way. That doesn’tmean that I don’t have big thoughts, but Jeff
and Muriel were clearly futurists and thinking
on a different level.

was most involved in, which are those Davos
events I mentioned. We would get somepretty prominent people from the Boston
area to show up to those. They were very
popular. We’d sometimes pack one hundred
fifty people in the building for those events.
Those were always highlights because it wasbasically like holding a little Davos seminar,
but inside swissnex.
The thing about those seminars though, isthey sometimes are more valuable at a smallerscale. I fairly quickly became a convert tohaving smaller handpicked audiences rather
than sending out an email blast to the generalpublic. To me, it was moreso a question of
how to get a handpicked audience one third
the size of those Davos events, but where theconversation may be more valuable.
Xavier used to make a really fascinating
point. He would say: “if Switzerland has five
hundred postdocs in the Boston area working
at different institutions, each of those cost on
average a million francs to educate. That’s halfa billion francs of Swiss taxpayer money that’s
sitting in the Boston area. How do we create
the return for Switzerland?”In many ways, swissnex was his answer tothat question. It’s not only a bridge between
that pool of Swiss talent in the US and
Switzerland, but also a platform for elevatingthat talent and creating a tangible return on
investment for Switzerland.

Some of the design elements they proposedin the building process were pretty bold, to
put it lightly. Jeff would hand out a slide-deckand say, “this is what we’re gonna do.” There
were some pretty wild ideas in there. The
end result was a bit tamer than some of the
proposals, but it was still quite disruptive.
Can you walk us through some of thememorable activities, projects or situations
that you lived through in that time?
We’re talking about 15–20 years ago, but theones that jump to mind are the ones that I

Paul Smyke

21

“I hope there will be more inititatives likeswissnex.”
Evelyn Lager, the first employee of swissnex Boston, talks about the early days at swissnex
Boston, from her initial meeting with Xavier Comtesse to implementing the first few major
projects at swissnex.

I emailed him and got this one liner backsaying, “here’s my number, call me and we
can talk.” I called him, and what I thought
would be a five-minute chat turned into a very
intriguing thirty-minute conversation.

Lager at the 15th anniversary celebration of swissnex
Boston in 2015

Evelyn Lager was the first hire at swissnex
Boston, back when it was still known as
SHARE, the Swiss House for Advanced
Research and Education. Lager helped
translate Xavier Comtesse’s vision for a Swiss
science and technology hub in Boston intoa reality. Twenty years later, she is SeniorDirector at Babson Executive Education. She
looks back on those “fast and furious” first two
years of swissnex Boston in this interview.
swissnex Boston: How did you first hear
about swissnex Boston?
Evelyn Lager: It sounds very old fashioned
right now, but I, along with all the Swiss
citizens who lived in New England got a letterin the mail, informing us that this new “Swiss
House” would open up. There really wasn’t
a lot of information in it, but it had Xavier
Comtesse’s email address in it.

22

After that, Xavier said, “well, if you have thismany questions, then we should meet.” So
I got on the subway, rode out to Cambridgeand met with him. It was just very intriguing.
It became very clear, very quickly, that thisinitiative had a big vision but that the building
blocks were not yet there.
Was this when swissnex already had thebuilding at 420 Broadway?
No, this was before. Our meeting famously
happened in the garden of Xavier’s residencein Cambridge. He kept saying, “you know…
Broadway, Broadway.” But when I walked
by on Broadway, I only saw this old, rundown building with a supermarket and alaundromat. When I told my friends about
it, they said, “so this is the Swiss consulate?
Are you sure this guy is for real? Have you
fallen prey to some scam artist here?” It was
really not how you would envision your firstinteraction with a diplomatic figure, let’s put itthat way.
Where did it go from that first meeting?
When I left the residence that day, Xavier said:“Well, this is great. I can’t hire you right now,
but I’ll let you know when I hire you.” And I
said “Oh, but I wasn’t interviewing.” And hesaid, “Yeah, well, I was.” That gave me sortof a really good sense of what the rest of thedays would look like.
After a few months, Xavier did call me andleft a voicemail. It seemed they had worked
through some of the kinks in the budget, andgot the budget approved, because he left mea voicemail saying “well, I’m ready. Are you
going to come or what?” So I became thefirst employee, and we started working out of
Xavier’s residence until the renovations of ourbuilding at 420 Broadway were finished.
What were you doing at the time?
I was working for an outplacement company
and finishing my bachelor’s degree part-time.
I had three night classes a week and a jobthat essentially supported my studies. AfterI joined swissnex, that dynamic changed
quickly.
So at some point you move into the newbuilding, and swissnex starts to become
operative. What were those days like?
Crazy, but invigorating. It was fast andfurious in 1999 and 2000 — a bit like the wild
west. When we opened, it was very much
like an open startup. It was a community
platform. As we got more and more attention
in both Switzerland and the US, however,there was more of a spotlight on us, so we
had to mature very quickly.

I remember that the Governor of
Massachusetts came for the opening night.
His security detail came by to look at thepremises beforehand and wanted to know
in every little detail what the Governor wasgoing to do. One of the things was to sign
the guestbook, to which his security agents
said the Governor did not touch any provided
pens and would need to bring his own pen. It
was just that level of detail, that at the time,
nobody on our staff had gone through. We
were a little bit like fish out of water, and so
we had to do a lot of improvising and thinking
on our feet. And it was a lot of fun.
Was there a lot of attention from the press?
Yes. Because the concept was so novel atthat time, we got a huge amount of press.
There were times where it seemed like wewere exclusively organizing tours of thespace for the press. One of my highlights
would be running around with the Swiss TV
crew. We even had a visit from the French
Senate — that wasn’t the press, but all thesehigh level visits surprised us with how muchattention we were garnering.
I think we got so much press attention
because we were at the forefront of setting
up something completely different and new,and it wasn’t what people expected from the
Swiss.
There were bigger European countries withmore traditional consulates that couldn’t
believe we, the Swiss, were the ones to be

Evelyn Lager23

on the cutting edge. I actually think there’s
a great entrepreneurial spirit in Switzerland.
Maybe it’s because the country is smaller,
there are a lot of opportunities to be at theforefront for similar initiatives like swissnex.
I hope there will be more initiatives likeswissnex that Switzerland is going to cook up.

My time at swissnex prepared me really wellto tackle this challenge — to see great ideas
and opportunities, but to think critically about
how to translate that into tangible outcomes.
How were we going to go about capturingthat value, and how were we going to anchor
it in the existing ecosystem?

What were some projects and activities you
are proud to have worked on at swissnex?

These days at Babson I’m working withcompanies to develop leadership capabilities,
especially around entrepreneurial leadershipand innovation. What’s become clear is that
there are always different stakeholders,different objectives, a different context, anddifferent characteristics.

With the Gerbert Rüf foundation, weestablished a program called NETS, “New
Entrepreneurs in Technology and Science,”
working with Swiss entrepreneurs, getting
them acquainted with the US ecosystem. I
was in charge of that. It was an incredible
program that lasted for over 10 years, andparts of it live on through the Venture Leaders
Program. Looking at the alumni of these
programs, it’s very rewarding to see howmuch impact that has had.
Another activity that sticks out to me waswhen I arranged a visit for diversity andinclusion officers from Swiss universities andacademic institutions. At that time, there wasa radical initiative by a few women faculty at
MIT who wanted to become more data-driven
in fighting for equal access for women at MIT.
They conducted a scientific study and ended
up suing MIT on the basis of the findingsof that study. So it was very interesting toarrange that trip for a Swiss constituency thatwas not quite that far along. It was important
for them to see what was happening here andto discuss among themselves what would
realistically work in the Swiss context.
You’re now at Babson Executive Education.
What was the impact that your time atswissnex had on your career?
My first job at Babson was a new role andvery undefined. It was to set up an institutethat would build relationships and programswith European Partners, but there wasn’t agrand plan to make it work.

24

I think that’s the story of swissnex: workfrom experience, but keep an open mind, be
flexible, and know how to take curveballs.
The experience at swissnex sharpened myattention to all stakeholders, it frequently
turns out that they actually needed something
completely different. Sometimes they know
it, and sometimes they uncover it in open
conversations.

“Something new and different could emerge”
Christoph von Arb, former Director of swissnex Boston/SHARE, recounts key moments inthe organization’s establishment and development.

Christoph von Arb leading a video call session between Cambridge and Switzerland in 2003

In a way, Christoph von Arb’s swissnex
experience began in 1990, when he was
first appointed as a Science & Technology
Counselor to the Embassy of Switzerland
in Washington, DC. After his time in
Washington, von Arb served as the Head ofInternational Affairs at SERI from 1995–2002,
during which he helped expand the presenceof Science and Technology Offices abroadand helped establish SHARE. In 2002, hemoved from Switzerland to Boston to run
SHARE/swissnex Boston as Director until
2008.
swissnex Boston: You spent some time asa Science & Technology Counselor in the
United States and then oversaw a rapid
expansion of the field from Bern. What was
the motivation behind this expansion while
you were Head of International Affairs at
SERI?
Christoph von Arb: After I came backfrom Washington as a science counselor, I

worked at the State Secretariat for Education,
Research and Innovation (SERI) underCharles Kleiber. My time in Washington had
shown me that there was not a great enoughemphasis on science and technology. I knewthat had to change, because it was far too
important for Switzerland to not include
science and technology in our diplomatic
work and relations. In 1995, when I returned
to Bern, there were only three sciencecounselors: one in Washington, one in Tokyoand one in Brussels. So my first approach
was to expand the network of Swiss Scienceand Technology Offices in various embassies,
which required a lot of goodwill from Foreign
Affairs (FDFA).
Since there was never enough money foranything, we had to get creative to financethe expansion. For example, the ETH board
sponsored the science counselor position in
San Francisco, of which then Christian Simm
was the first to receive that posting. He wasat EPFL in those days, and then I hired him

Christoph von Arb

25

to go to San Francisco and he stayed there
for a long time. After a few years, we had
expanded to about 15 science counselors
across the world. It was a very important firststep. After expanding the network of Science
Counselors came something bold and new.
How did you contribute to the founding of
SHARE and swissnex?
After expanding the presence of sciencecounselors in the late 90s, I knew we needed
to do more. We wanted to have our own
platform, our own consulate under thejurisdiction of SERI. It could be a place to not
only foster high-level relationships, but also
to broaden and widen the scope of our work
to include a larger community, from students
to professors, to executives in governmentand others. The idea was to bring thesediverse groups of people together,sparks would fly, and perhaps something
different and new could emerge from thosegatherings.
At first, there was a significant amount ofresistance, both from the diplomatic anduniversity communities in Switzerland. It
was seen as a waste of money that could
otherwise go towards research. I pushed
back, underscoring the enormous potentialof such a platform. At the Federal level, I
was able to secure the tentative support of
the Federal Councillor, Ruth Dreifuss, but
without any promise of funding. So we had
to look elsewhere for the cash to support thisventure.
With the help of my colleague Xavier
Comtesse — who was my successor as
science counselor in Washington — wenegotiated a deal with Lombard Odier,
the private bank in Geneva. They had
recently celebrated their two hundred year
anniversary and wanted to give back to
Switzerland. They gave us a generous grant,
but on the condition that the money would
not be used for operational costs, and thatthe consulate would stay running for at least
10 years.

26

Fast forward to setting up this new
initiative in Boston, what was the local
reception of SHARE when you firstestablished it?
As soon as we bought the property in
Cambridge and began the process toestablish SHARE/swissnex, some of theneighbors immediately went to court against
us. They didn’t want a foreign consulate intheir neighborhood, with people standing inthe streets applying for their passports.
And so we had to fight them in court. That
was the first roadblock before we could ever
get anything accomplished. Fortunately, themayor of Cambridge liked the idea of having
a consulate in his city, and so he supported
us. We made our case to the judge, and heruled in our favor and allowed us to establish
our location.
After the ruling, I thought maybe we
could find a way that we could settle withthose neighbors, because I wanted a good
relationship with the community. So we
settled and all seemed well. But on the dayof the inauguration, after we had finishedrenovations and unveiled the transformed
space, there was a demonstration on
Broadway. People had banners saying,“Switzerland go home.” When I saw thedemonstrators outside, I went outside,
offered them food and drink, and we wereable to talk through things with them. I think
things kind of calmed down after that.
While all of this was happening you werestill in Bern at SERI. How did you thenbecome Director of SHARE/swissnex
Boston?
After our first Director, Xavier Comtesse,
moved back to Switzerland, I decided to takeon the role myself. This was a pilot project,and I wanted more Swiss Houses across theworld. I knew that if it failed in Boston, we’dnever have a chance again. I wanted to do
everything I could to get this solid on the
ground and get it airborne. And so on very

short notice, my wife and I decided that wewould sell our house in Switzerland and go
move to Boston.
We understand that fundraising was a big
part of your job when you arrived. What
was the importance of public-private
partnership for SHARE/swissnex Boston?
When I left for Boston, Charles Kleiber
told me that we needed to raise money tokeep the project running, and that swissnex
would need to be made possible by publicprivate partnership. So in my job description
it stipulated that 50% of our expenses andexpenditure would need to be raised fromthird parties. The federal government would
fund 50% of our budget, which would
basically pay the salaries of 3 people andsome of the operations.
So I had to develop strong relationships with
key individuals, institutions, companies, andeven universities to keep swissnex running.
For me it was an opportunity to prove our
success, because if clients liked our work,
then they would support us financially. And
over time that developed quite nicely. We got
to more than half of what the running costs
were.
What were some of the highlights of thosepartnerships?
Because of our government status, we
did not position SHARE as a place topromote or advertise Swiss businesses. We
offered SHARE as a place to conduct R&D,
technology development, and take part in
the innovations taking place in Boston. Someof the first partners that came on board
were related to or were companies that had
subsidiaries in the Boston area already. They
were interested in taking advantage of theplatform, the location, and hosting something.
One of the partnerships was with Lindt andSprüngli, which was north of Boston in New
Hampshire. When I asked them about getting
chocolate — because we had a high needfor chocolate at our events — they sent usa package with several thousand pieces of
chocolate every so often. The FedEx delivery
man couldn’t believe it was all chocolate.
It came in handy. The chocolate would
disappear very quickly. People would come,and then you’d see them fill their pockets.
We had 30–40 private partners that would
pay us for our work, including major Swiss
universities. I would go to Switzerland fiveor six times a year just to see people, sit withthem, and listen to what they wanted andwhat their interests were. That helped meunderstand where their needs were, and thentry to embed them in the community in the
Boston area.
What was your favorite part of working at
swissnex?
I really enjoyed the networking andinteraction with people that happened there.
It very quickly became a hub and a gathering
place for Swiss professors and scientists in thearea. Many of the topics and events that weorganized were so fascinating and interesting,it really contributed to our success.
For me, it was a continuous education
because I learned new things all the time, andnever ceased to discover fascinating topics
and trends people were working on. That
was really what made this one of the mostprofound experiences in my entire career: that
I had an opportunity to be there.

von Arb and the SHARE team in 2003

Christoph von Arb

27

“We were seeding relationships that very often
grew into successful partnerships”
Pascal Marmier, former CEO of swissnex Boston, on entrepreneurial beginnings and key
partnerships.

Marmier at swissnex China

When Pascal Marmier began working with
Xavier Comtesse on what would becomeswissnex Boston, he didn’t know it at the time,
but it would be the start of a lifelong journey.
Over the course of two decades, Marmierwould serve as one of the first employees
at SHARE, CEO of swissnex Boston, as wellas CEO of swissnex China. His swissnex
experience speaks to the possibilities thatcome from working at the world’s first science
consulate.

28

Marmier is now SVP of Strategy, Life, andHealth at iptiQ by SwissRe, and is a memberof the swissnex Committee, which advises theState Secretary for Education, Research, andInnovation on strategic issues relating to theswissnex Network. This is our conversation
with him.

swissnex Boston: What is your swissnex
story and what different phases did you live
through?
Pascal Marmier: Getting involved withswissnex from the beginning was alife-changing experience. I grew up in
Switzerland, went to law school, and thoughtthat I would simply go back to work in
Geneva or Lausanne after a year in the US.
Then, my wife got a job here in Boston andwanted to stay a bit longer, so I had sometime on my hands.
Right at about the same time, mygrandmother sent me a little newspaper
cutout in the mail that basically said that the
Swiss government was opening a science
consulate in Cambridge. So I called their
number, thinking it was a big organization,and met Xavier Comtesse. To make the story
short, he offered me a job, I joined the team,and off we went, hungry for success. It was
all about building, trying, experimenting andcreating what swissnex is today. That was
how phase one started.
My role was heading the innovation andentrepreneurship desk at the time. It took all
kinds of efforts to try to create a businessangle in Switzerland for folks who wanted
to sponsor companies and wanted to comehere. We started this tiny program, New
Entrepreneurs in Technology and Science(NETS) which was financed by the Gebert
Rüf Foundation, and the office wasn’t evenopen yet. We were in Harvard Square, literally

Xavier and I in front of a blank sheet of paper
calling a couple of Swiss people. So just a lotof entrepreneurial, startup-like mindset andactivity. We continued with that mentality fora while until Christoph Von Arb took the helm.
Was that the beginning of phase two?
I think so. Coming from Bern, Christophnaturally came with more formal structure
and processes to guide swissnex and ensurestability. During that time, I was working on
exploring the ecosystem and how to develop
our network and community in Boston andCambridge. Thinking about how to work with
MIT, the Mass High Tech Council, and others.
There was a real focus on being a community
organization. We tried to create eventsand activities with whomever we could.
Sometimes we would have high-level visitswith government officials. We became pretty
good friends with a lot of the Cambridge
officials for example, and slowly transitioned
to becoming more traditional in a sense about
our structure and presence.
How did you become CEO of swissnex
Boston?
I was navigating through different things.
I was working the innovation desk and I
decided that I wanted to explore MIT. So I got
the blessing of the State Secretary, who said,“Hey, why don’t you do a bit of education,
we’ll help you out with a tiny stipend,” andI obviously went for it. This was the launch
towards getting access to the CEO job at the

Pascal Marmier

29

time. I actually didn’t think it was possible,
but State Secretary Charles Kleiber appointed
me as CEO before he retired. As CEO, I don’t
think I dramatically changed the model, butrather went about consolidating academic
partnerships, recruiting a strong team, andbeginning to look more into offering services.
What was the reception like at Swiss
universities?
I think Patrick Aebischer, the President of
EPFL, was one of the first people to comehere and be wowed about what we were
trying to build. We needed people like him—ambassadors for swissnex to bring our voice
back to Switzerland. An iconic example I
like to share is one of a complete 180 turn.
At the time of our founding, universities inthe Deutschschweiz (the German-speaking
region of Switzerland) saw us through thelens of what is called the Röstigraben, whichrefers to the divide between the French andGerman speaking parts of Switzerland. They
felt that our activity at the start was not fully
reaching the German speaking part. There
were even articles in the press that criticized
us and called into question the legitimacyof the “Swiss” aspect of our mission, as theyfelt that we were only interested in serving
the interests of Suisse Romande (the Frenchspeaking region of Switzerland).
But interestingly enough, some of the same
skeptics on the German side eventuallychanged their minds. The reason for it wasthat they couldn’t find value in something they
didn’t understand. swissnex was a completely
novel creature of an entrepreneurial nature.
This image of us lingered until professors at
Harvard and MIT would come to swissnex andbe blown away by what the Swiss government
had done. The element of surprise wastangible when people realized that a small,quiet country like Switzerland was able tobuild something like this. They were ecstatic
to come over, meet interesting people,
experience great content, and get a feel of
Switzerland. These professors would go backto their friends at Swiss universities and say,30

“wait how come you never mentioned thisplace? It’s right next door to us!” That waswhen we reached a turning point with the
Swiss universities. They ended up becoming
the core of swissnex’s support network.
How did the Venture Leaders program start,
and what was your and swissnex’s role in its
creation?
Early on at swissnex, I started getting into
technology transfer. It was really something
on the rise at that time, especially in the
Greater Boston area. The first real position
I had after having been an intern andentrepreneur was sponsored by the Swiss
network of innovation, which paid me to
study developments in technology transfer.
Within this context, we realized that oneof the key elements of technology transfer
was entrepreneurship. We had to ask
ourselves, “how do we take science leaders
and transform them into technology leaders
who will then create startups and spin-offs?”
The answer was the aforementioned NETS
program, which later evolved into the Venture
Leaders program that still exists today. It wasa smart use of money, and we didn’t havemuch trouble finding partners.
Any big milestones for you as CEO?
There are many that come to mind. The 10
year anniversary was a lot of fun. My wife
even got involved in the planning. It was a
massive undertaking. EHL, the hospitality
School of Lausanne came for a whole week,
and it was the first official visit of the former
federal Federal Counselor, Didier Burkhalter.
So that was great. Another milestone wascertainly when we celebrated the second
floor addition. We had Al Gore come tospeak at the ceremony and brought in many
interesting people on the Swiss side.
Another special moment was right before I
left for China. We started working with the
Universities of Applied Sciences, who were
underrepresented internationally in theMarmier speaking at a swissnex’s annual “Back to School” event in 2010

Swiss education system. Although it wasn’t
vocational by design, it certainly wasn’t
supposed to be international, but yet there
was a group of nurses, physical therapists
dancing in the middle of swissnex residence
because my son, who at the time wasprobably five or six, decided that he wanted
to plug in his iPod and DJ during their visit.
It was unforgettable moments like this thatstick out to me. You couldn’t have planned orengineered it even if you wanted to.
What are you most proud of in your time atswissnex?
What always stood out to me was the qualityof the exchanges and the relationships I
developed at swissnex. When you have someof the brightest entrepreneurs, artists, andacademics from the US and Switzerland
coming through your doors, great things
are bound to happen. In a way, we wereseeding relationships that very often grew

into successful partnerships. That being said,
for me the metric number one was always
within the team: “did we create a team that
goes on to do great things and use theirtime at swissnex as an experience to kindof grow and develop?” To me, the answer
is a resounding yes. Without fail, spendingtime at swissnex changed the mindset andsometimes even the career trajectory ofmany people.
So really, my proudest achievement was
having had the chance to work so closelywith so many amazing interns, colleagues,
and leaders. It’s been so nice to see thegrowth of that community throughout theyears. Collectively, I know that swissnex had
an impact on all of us. I’m confident that willcontinue for the next 20 years and beyond.

Pascal Marmier

31

“A two-way exchange for innovative ideas
between Switzerland and the US.”
Felix Moesner, former CEO of swissnex Boston and current CEO of swissnex China talks
expansion, acceleration, and key partnerships.

swissnex Boston: What you were doing
before joining swissnex Boston?

Moesner speaking with Ban Ki Moon at an ICRC
launch event in 2017

Felix Moesner has had an array of professional
experiences. Before starting his swissnex
journey, he worked in top-tier academia, at
a startup, and one of the largest financial
institutions in the world, to name just a few of
his endeavors.
Moesner eventually made his way to the
Swiss Embassy in Tokyo, where he establishedand ran Japan’s first Swiss Science &Technology Office. Nine years later, he cameto Cambridge to become the fourth CEO ofswissnex Boston. During his tenure, Moesner
rapidly expanded swissnex’s presence andaccelerated partnerships in both Switzerland
and Boston.
Today, Moesner lives in Shanghai where he is
the CEO of swissnex China. We had a chance
to chat with him and hear about the swissnex
journey that has taken him across the globe.

32

Felix Moesner: It’s been quite the journey
because science is at my heart. I was inacademia in the robotics’ field, but shifted tothe private sector for a couple of years after
my postdoc at ETH Zurich, working for astartup and then several blue chip companies.
I had been running the IT department ofCredit Suisse Life Japan, when I saw there
was an opening as Science Counselor at the
Swiss Embassy in Tokyo.
I was ready for a change back to my curiositydriven roots and so I seized the opportunity.
One of my first accomplishments in Tokyo
was launching the Science and Technology
Office. I stayed at that job for nine years, very
closely linked on the science side with thegovernment, but also experimenting with newformats.
How did you wind up going from Tokyo to
Boston?
I saw what swissnex was doing in Boston and
SF and found it really cool. Unfortunately
though, there was no swissnex in Japan,
but there was an opening in Boston. Mauro
Moruzzi, the head of the swissnex network,
called me and said, “How about Boston?’’I naturally jumped at the opportunity. For
me, Boston was kind of a dream destination,
because it’s full of science and home to someof the brightest minds in science, innovation,
and academia.

Within a 90 minute drive, you have 200–
300 colleges, universities, and research
institutions. It’s simply a hotspot. Andof course New England is an extremely
charming part of the United States. When I
arrived it almost looked like a part of Europe,in a way. What fascinated me the most,
however, were the people. They were very
open, but also serious. It’s a very uniquecorner of the United States.
What were the priorities that you tried to
set in your time and the opportunities thatyou tried to go after?
At the most basic level, it was simply creatinga lasting impact for Switzerland in Boston.
This was actually my main task: to raise thevisibility to the max. When I came to theteam, I often said that staff members were
one of the most important resources we had.
Each person fit their position incredibly well,and there was a huge diversity of skills within
the staff. The only thing I needed to do wassay, “the sky’s the limit.”
We ramped things up, expanding theteam, increasing the number of events anddelegations, and we even remodeled theoffice space. I really tried to make the office
as efficient as possible, while maintaining
good communication amongst the staff. After
having laid the groundwork for success, wewere then ready to achieve a few goals.

Are there any milestones and key momentsthat stand out to you?
One was organizing the first-ever SwissUS Energy Innovation Day in 2014. It was
the beginning of a very nice series thatis still going strong on both sides of theAtlantic. That year, we were extremely
lucky to have Federal Councillor and Energy
Minister Doris Leuthard visit with a verylarge delegation. While she visited, we also
took the opportunity to introduce her to
MassChallenge, which she liked so muchthat she wanted a MassChallenge locationin Switzerland. Today, there is a thriving
MassChallenge location in Lausanne, andI think that was a big achievement forswissnex, because we wanted to createa two-way exchange for innovative ideas
between Switzerland and the US.
Were there any university partnerships thatswissnex facilitated?
The MIT-ETH partnership is the first thatcomes to mind. It was a much easier sellbecause MIT already considered ETH and
EPFL as its peers. When we began focusing
on the energy sector, it gave MIT and ETH
an excuse to begin working together. MIT
was very clear that ETH could bring a lot to
the table to proceed with this agreement. Of
course there were many discussions, but I
think from the beginning there was a mutual
understanding that collaboration should
happen. I think the solidifying moment camewhen Doris Leuthard gave a speech at MIT

Dr. Felix Moesner

33

about the activities in the fields of energy andenergy innovation. It really set the mood forthat partnership.
Another big initiative under your tenure
was the establishment of the swissnex in
New York office. How did that come tofruition?
We established the New York office in 2013,
and I’m really glad we did. We began tonotice a large amount of demand for swissnex
programming in New York, so we first tested
the waters with startups. We sent out aquestionnaire to two hundred Swiss startups
that had come to our office in Boston, asking
if they thought it would be useful to do
programs in New York. The feedback was
overwhelmingly positive. It really was theright place to be. It is the financial epicenterof the United States, number 2 for venture
capital, and home to more than one hundred
universities.
It was obvious that if we could create
opportunities for startups and universities
there, it could only succeed. As such, ourfirst two major activities in New York were
the Innosuisse startup camp and supporting
Swiss universities. When we were planning
the opening, Susan Kish, who at that time
was Head of Cross Platform Initiatives at
Bloomberg told me, “if you start in New York,you have to set the tone at the right level.” So
it only made sense to celebrate the openingof the New York office in the headquarters
of Bloomberg, with high visibility and a lot of
momentum.
What are some of the memorable projects
or activities that you remember mostfondly?
One that is really close to my heart is thefounding of the Science & Technology
Diplomatic Circle (S&TDC) of Boston. I haveto say it was kind of an experiment, because
I wasn’t sure if there would be enoughdiplomatic staff dedicated to science in the
Boston area. The diplomatic circle started

34

small, but it quickly expanded to include
more than 50 diplomatic missions. I thinkit’s something that really improved ourrelationship with the diplomatic community
in Boston and generally contributed to ourpositive reputation in the region. Governor
Baker actually gave swissnex a letter ofcommendation for our work in forming
the diplomatic circle. That meant a lot tome. Meanwhile, new S&TDC’s were set up
in Shanghai, Singapore and New York, allfollowing the Boston pattern.
Another was when we helped launch the
ICRC Collaborative Platform in 2017. UN
Secretary General emeritus Ban Ki Moon
actually came and gave the keynote address
at the launch event at Novartis. He wasdoing research at Harvard at that time, andwe reached out to him to see if he would beinterested in the platform. He immediately
accepted. From the start, he was very
passionate about supporting this initiative.
The project as a whole was a great way
to foster collaboration and exchange withpeople in Geneva. It was a perfect example ofus connecting the dots.
What made Boston so special for partners
and stakeholders back in Switzerland?
Well, geographically it’s a no-brainer. Boston
is the closest place in the US which you canreach from Switzerland. Luckily, it’s also oneof the most innovative places. That’s why
I think it’s obvious that you have frequent
and repeat visitors coming to Boston andswissnex. There’s a lot of value in this regionand stakeholders want to be connected to it.
Take university alumni for example. We
launched something like 12 alumni chaptersand maintained them as much as possible. I
think there’s a lot of joy and warmth in thesegroups and I think that definitely radiates
back to Switzerland. We always wanted towelcome visitors from Swiss universities,
startups and organizations and make themfeel at home in Boston.

“The only constant at swissnex is change”
Christian Simm, founder of swissnex San Francisco and former CEO of swissnex Boston,talks about his 20 years at swissnex and how it changed the way he sees Switzerland.

Simm at the Boston Museum of Science during swissnex Boston’s “Swiss Touch in Space” event in 2019.

In 1997, Christian Simm became the first
Science and Technology Counselor (STC) in
San Francisco, at the height of the tech boomin Silicon Valley. In 2003, he founded swissnex
San Francisco, and stayed on as its CEO until
2017, when he moved to the East Coast to takethe helm of swissnex Boston. This year, after
dedicating 20 years to swissnex, Simm moved
back to Switzerland to head the University of
Zurich’s International Relations Office. We sat
down with him to reflect on those years.

swissnex Boston: Let’s start at the
beginning. How did you get started as a
Science and Technology Counselor for
Switzerland in San Francisco?
Christian Simm: It was an interesting
moment in time in the mid-nineties. The firstinternet browser had become available a few
years earlier, and all of a sudden Silicon Valley
was exploding with activity. In Switzerland, it
quickly became clear that if you were young
and you had a computer science degree,

Christian Simm35

the best thing to do was to go live and workin Silicon Valley. As a result, the concept of“brain-drain” was starting to become a big
discussion in Switzerland. People wanted
to find out how we could take advantage ofthis tech boom in the US and link it back to
Switzerland. That’s why, under the leadershipof State Secretary Charles Kleiber — who wasvery much a visionary person — Switzerland
created the Science and Technology
Counselor position in San Francisco. It was
actually the first STC position outside a
capital city.
At that time, I was running the Industrial
Liaison Office at EPFL and had connections
in many different sectors and organizationsin Switzerland and in Europe which proved
to be very useful in the US. So when the new
STC position in Silicon Valley was advertised,
I jumped at the opportunity. I think it might
have been the coolest and the most exciting
job description I ever had, because it wascompletely open. So that’s how I ended up as
the first STC in San Francisco.
How did you develop the concept ofswissnex after you started as the STC in
San Francisco?
After starting in San Francisco in 1997, I
quickly discovered that the US is a verytransactional society, and that collaboration
would be crucial to properly position
Switzerland there. And we had to do it
differently from the others to even be
noticed. At that time, all the new digital tools
had many people dreaming about working
remotely and doing everything virtually. I
saw it as an opportunity to take the opposite
approach of creating a physical place for theexchange of ideas that would be open to the
public and could quickly adapt to stay on the
cutting edge of science diplomacy.
This concept struck a chord with many
people and organizations, a number of which
ended up becoming invaluable supportersof swissnex. So in 2003, with the generous
support of key sponsors and the tireless36

efforts of many, I was able to open theswissnex office in downtown San Francisco
and it was a hit. In 2016, we marked anothermilestone by reinventing swissnex SF andmoving our location to an innovative andexperimental space on Pier 17, along with theConsulate General of Switzerland, the Swiss
Business Hub and Switzerland Tourism.
Who were some of the key sponsors in theearly days in SF?
There were several: EPFL, the Y. & I.
Oltramare Foundation, various companies
and individuals offering time and consulting.
Another founding sponsor was SwissRe,
the big Swiss insurance company. They hadbooming activities in San Francisco andwere leading the efforts to link the cities of
Zurich and San Francisco as sister cities. We
bundled all these energies and ideas. The city
partnership was inaugurated the day before
swissnex, a symbol of how swissnex would
bridge higher education with innovation,science with art, and technology with public
diplomacy.
What was the process of developing thebrand identity and design for swissnex like?
I was able to create the name, logo, andbranding identity with the invaluable helpof two key figures: David Placek, founder of
Lexicon Branding, and Yves Béhar, founderof fuseproject. David came up with the nameand branding and Yves came up with thedesign.

Early version of the swissnex logo

Back cover of swissnex’s annual report in 2005

concept for the swissnex office in SF

David’s intention was to find words thatdefined us well, but general enough to allow
for different interpretations. He knew thatthe word “Swiss” had to be in the namebecause this initiative was clearly comingfrom Switzerland. But our name also needed
to imply connections and links with the restof the world, so David took “nex,” from theword nexus, which means central link orconnection. Thus, we landed on “swissnex,”
and it stuck.
For the design, Yves wanted something thatwas light, joyful and mobile. In one of his
first proposals he used the metaphor of soap
bubbles. While that wasn’t the final concept,
he did stick with spheres, because as he said
it was the only geometrical object that you
can connect to without any preference fromany side. He then added crossbars between
the dots, and that’s where our slogan“connecting the dots” came from. An added
bonus was that the Swiss cross was subtly
contained within those crossbars, becauseback then it was actually a white logo on a
red background.
How did the branding of swissnex make its
way to Boston and the rest?

concept sketches by Béhar for inside swissnex SF

the Swiss House of Advanced Researchand Education in Boston, just “swissnex”
in San Francisco, and the Swiss House in
Singapore. Charles Kleiber saw three separateorganizations with similar objectives, andthus the opportunity for unifying our branding
and identity and creating a network. We
all agreed, and then he created a working
group which determined that instead ofreinventing the wheel with the new branding,we should build on the work already done
by professionals like Yves and David. So thebranding was slightly modified to a red logowith the Swiss cross in it, and now a locationin the swissnex name.

In around 2007 or 2008, we had SHARE,

Christian Simm

37

What was the transition from swissnex in
SF to Boston like?
When I took over as CEO of swissnex Boston
in 2017, the swissnex network had grown
and matured, while the world was changing
at an increasing pace. By being small andagile, nimble and very creative, swissnex had
always succeeded in staying ahead of thegame and providing meaningful contributions
to society. At the same time the technooptimism of the early 2000 was giving way totechno-skepticism if not techno-pessimism.
Very early on, as it is expected from anorganization believing that the future isalready here, the swissnex network caredabout the societal impact of technologies andthe way we consume them, and continuously
adapted its services. The only constant at
swissnex is change, and the fact that we workwith so many amazing people all around theworld. That’s what I love about swissnex, andthat’s why I stayed for so long.
What were some highlights of your time in
Boston?
It was another “adventure”, another discovery
for me. For instance, a city with a uniqueconcentration of universities and researchbrainpower. A region in which long andin-depth conversations are more frequentcompared to Silicon Valley and its sense ofpermanent urgency. A strong relationshipwith state and local governments, andwith the representatives of other countries
engaging in science diplomacy. The East
Coast seasons and their wide range oftemperatures. The proximity of New York —where swissnex Boston has an office — andits completely different and very vibrantecosystem. The activities we did all along
the East Coast, from Montréal to DC to theSouth.
What do you value the most aboutswissnex?

38

We truly lived sayings like “Shoot for the
moon, because if you miss it, you willreach the stars” or “ask for forgiveness notfor permission” or “it is easier to do theimpossible because there is less competition.”
This attracted out-of-the-box thinkers anddoers into the team and all around us,
people with passion, favoring the mentalityof “Why not?” instead of “Why?” in pursuitof our ambitious mission to create impact.
This swissnex spirit created and continues
to create a huge community of colleagues,
clients, friends, partners, supporters allaround the world: a wonderful and amazing
human experience.
20 years later — how do you see the impactof swissnex on Switzerland as a whole?
swissnex is often described as a “foresighter,”a connector or a facilitator. Some say we are
curators of immersive experiences, guides inco-creation processes or stage directors. In
fact, it is all that and more. Hence why I like to
use metaphors.
Before digital photography, images were
captured on film. The film then had to bechemically developed in a darkroom before
being projected very subtly on photosensitive
paper that, in turn, needed to go through arevelator bath. It was a lengthy and somewhat“magical” process requiring deep know-how
and creativity.
swissnex is like a modern version of that.
With a very specific photographic eye weaim our lenses at faint signals from thefuture which, taken individually and just bythemselves, might be hard to read and tointerpret. That is when co-creation with ourpartners and clients starts in the darkroom.
By adding to the revealing bath context
and content, creativity and a diversity ofperspectives, images emerge from the empty
photosensitive paper. Through dialogues
with multiple parties these images are thensharpened and become not only guides tobetter apprehend the future, they show
opportunities to act and create impact.

“We call swissnex our base camp.
It was really the foundation of it all.”Jordi Montserrat of Venturelab talks about the value of having swissnex as a base camp
for their Venture Leaders program.

For the past 20 years, Jordi Montserrat has
been active in the vibrant Swiss high-techscene, contributing to the development ofinnovative businesses and stimulating the
Swiss start-up ecosystem.
In 2004, Montserrat co-founded Venturelab,
which supports Swiss entrepreneurs andstartups on their path to build successful
ventures. One of their flagship programs,
Venture Leaders, started with a two-week trip
organized and hosted by swissnex Boston.

The program has expanded globally via
the swissnex Network, bringing Swiss
entrepreneurs to global business hotspots like
Boston, San Francisco, New York, Barcelona,and Shanghai. Jordi tells us how the Venture
Leaders program first got started, and how
swissnex Boston became the foundation for itall.

Jordi Monserrat

39Montserrat and a Venture Leaders cohort in New Yorkswissnex Boston: how did Venture Leaders
begin, and how did you begin working withswissnex?
Jordi Montserrat: swissnex originally had aprogram in 2000 called New Entrepreneurs inTechnology and Science (NETS), which was
supported by the Gebert Rüf Foundation. It
was basically organized as a contact point toillustrate the type of value and content thatswissnex could bring and could deliver.

in Switzerland in a broad-based fashion.
There was a big educational aspect inentrepreneurship, but a lot of it was aboutchanging the mindset.
There were a lot of investors and businessdimensions, which were brought into thesetypes of programs. The idea was of course
to leverage what had been established as afoundation in Switzerland. So that’s how, in
2006, Venture Leaders was born.

I only came in contact with the NETS program
because I was actually invited in 2002 tointeract with them as an entrepreneur in
Switzerland. That’s how I got in contact withswissnex Boston. In the very early years, I
think it was a good illustration of the up-andcoming concept of science and technology
diplomacy. At that time, embassies had
started to have science counselors andtechnology officers but swissnex was stillpushing it one step further.

What made Venture Leaders different andinnovative?

In Switzerland, Venturelab was launchedin 2004. We sprung out as a national
entrepreneurship training program deployed

Originally, Venture Leaders kept thefoundations from NETS of taking 20
entrepreneurs to the US to strengthen them

40

What was new is that we made it anationwide competition, creating the “Swiss
startup national team.” The Swiss soccer
team was participating to the World Cup in
the US, and we were there with the Swiss
startup team. The goal was to create a very
competitive process to select and expose thebest participants.

through an early exposure to an executive
education.
The main goal of going to the US is of course
for startups to gain contacts and exposure
to the ecosystem and build the “think big”
mindset, because investment was not sostrong in Switzerland. In 2007 we started tolaunch related programs like Venture Kick andother support mechanisms. I think the key
philosophy for us has always been that when
you want to have a strong entrepreneurial
ecosystem, entrepreneurs lay at the core.
From the chicken to the egg and everything
in between, you need entrepreneurs. If you
don’t have entrepreneurs, you have nothing tofinance, there aren’t people transforming andcreating value for investors. Investors needentrepreneurs, and that’s a strong ecosystem.
What role did swissnex play in thedevelopment of Venture Leaders?
When the program was born, swissnex was
the foundation, it was the key partner thatreally organized the program. The program
was originally supported by the Gerbert Rüf
Stiftung, and then by the Swiss government
through the Swiss Commission for Technology
and Innovation (CTI), now Innosuisse.
When that support stopped after a few
years, we managed to move to a fully privatesponsoring base with a lot of support fromswissnex in Boston and China. It wouldn’t
have been possible to build such a program
without swissnex. The network and individual
locations were really crucial in helping us onthat front.
We learned to rely heavily on the credibilityof swissnex and its network — particularly
in Boston, where the network and presence
is really strong. It was really the foundationof it all. We called swissnex our base camp.
When we came to Boston, I literally had pin
on Google Maps where the swissnex office
was labeled as “base camp.” It was really ourhome base as entrepreneurs.

Having swissnex as a local partner allowed
the entrepreneurs to tap into the network andparticipate in all the programs in the different
hubs. Startups in the program could also thenconnect to a broader network of swissnex
locations around the world to continue their
expansion.
How has the program evolved since itbegan?
We constantly had discussions around thestrengths of this program: what was bringing
the most value to the entrepreneurs? It’s
about putting a team together, which isessential in creating this strong link between
entrepreneurs. It’s about exposing them toa new ecosystem, expanding their skills andmindset, and helping them get the rightbusiness connections.
Now long term, I think the biggest valueadded of the program is the lifelong link thatis created within that team. They will tell youthat the experiences and memories they makeat Venture Leaders are moments they willcherish forever. It’s a great time.
During those two weeks, the teams create
this unique bond that is hard to recreatein the real business world. It’s almost likeentrepreneurial friends. The latest batch thatwent to Boston in 2019 actually organized ateam lunch a few months ago by themselvesto have the opportunity to meet again.
In Switzerland, the ecosystem was evolving,education as a whole was strengthening.
So we decided to decrease the size of theeducational component over time, andstrengthened the business and investment
component. We then expanded to the West
Coast to better fit the needs of startups
applying.
We saw that with the strengthening of thestartups’ quality and maturity, there was
the need to have smaller, more specialized
teams based on sector. That helped betterorganize investors’ visits. We decided to split

Jordi Monserrat

41Montserrat and a Venture Leaders cohort at the swissnex Global Pitchfest in Boston in 2016

the groups, with Technology going to San
Francisco, Fintech going to New York, andLife Science staying in Boston. Then in 2013,
we opened a China trip.
Were there key figures from swissnex in thedevelopment of Venture Leaders?
For years, we worked with Pascal Marmier.
One of the big strengths of the network
was when Pascal went to China. That reallytriggered the implementation of the Venture
Leaders program in China. Being a more
complex market, we had more mature teams
and different topics, such as Cleantech,materials or Medtech. And that’s how theplatform evolved.
Today we have five teams. Mobile inBarcelona, Life Science in Boston, one
Fintech in New York and one Fintech in Hong
Kong, and Technology in San Francisco.
Unfortunately, due to the pandemic, there was
no 2020 trip except for the Barcelona programin February. But we’ve done some very niceonline events.
Are there any other “swissnex moments”
over the years that stand out to you?
There are so many. Lunches with Felix

42

Moesner at the Residence, VIP events with
Pascal and Felix where we met incredible
people, and so much more. We got to meetsome really high-level investors where one
visit gives you a very strong feeling of theenvironment.
There was also the visit from Joe von
Rickenbach, the founder of Parexel, acompany valued at almost $5 billion. For theteams and myself, meeting somebody whobuilt a company from scratch and growing it
to more than 20,000 employees is definitely
something that you don’t get to do every day.
One thing that has to be emphasized was theevents and how extremely nice they were.
They harnessed this incredible spirit thatyou’re able to share one another. It’s a simple
moment, but one of my favorite highlights
was being on the terrace of the Irving House
B&B in Cambridge, seeing participants very
intensely discussing their businesses. I was
witness to discussions in which some ofthe entrepreneurs literally reshaped theirbusinesses during that week.

Thank you to all of our interviewees for their time and dedication toswissnex throughout these years. There are countless others not featured
in this collection who also have contributed a great deal to swissnex overthe past 20 years. We thank them as well.
Benjamin Bollmann
CEO of swissnex Boston

Interviews

Benjamin Bollmann
Jonas Brunschwig
Alexandra Alteio
Anour Esa

Transcriptions

Anour Esa
James Moore

Writing and Copyediting

Anour Esa

Proofreading

Johanna Lemon

DesignAnour Esa

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