New Secretary General of ICC Switzerland as of 1^st January 2024

Announced at our Annual Meeting, our Secretary General, Thomas Pletscher, has decided to step down after 19 years in position.

Following the proposal of economiesuisse, the Board of ICC Switzerland unanimously elected Jan Atteslander as his successor at its Board meeting of 31 October 2023.

Jan Atteslander will assume his new role on 1st January 2024. ICC Switzerland will have an excellent Secretary General with Jan as he already knows ICC Switzerland very well, as a member of the Board of ICC Switzerland and as a member of the Trade and Investment Commission of ICC. Jan is a very well-connected business personality. Since 2008 he is member of the Executive Board at the Swiss Business Federation economiesuisse as head of international relations. He will continue with this function in parallel to his new role as Secretary General of ICC Switzerland. His team at economiesuisse covers foreign trade policy, bilateral trade and investment relations and european policy. He is member of several expert groups and committees and board member of bilateral chambers of commerce.

With this solution, ICC Switzerland will continue to be well integrated in the activities of economiesuisse and both organisations will complement each other efficiently to the benefit of the internationally oriented Swiss businesses.

Thomas Pletscher fully remains in charge until the end of the year. Therefore, we will formally honour his achievements at an appropriate event of ICC Switzerland next year. ICC Switzerland is very grateful to Thomas for his excellent and tireless work. Thomas started his ICC activities back in 1988 as member (and then Rapporteur) of the ICC Commission on Intellectual Property and joined later other ICC Commissions in addition. In 2004, Thomas was elected Secretary General of ICC Switzerland. In this function, Thomas ensured the strong development of ICC Switzerland with a lot of personal engagement. With Thomas, ICC Switzerland was able to conduct various activities, at national but also on an international level and gain visibility. Thomas was further very active in the field of arbitration and introduced the tradition of the study tour for Swiss arbitrators to the ICC Court in Paris. In Switzerland, Thomas launched among others a series of Geneva Business Dialogues as well as Chairman’s Lunches. And not to be forgotten a few years ago, Thomas launched Stop Piracy, the Swiss platform for the fight against counterfeiting and piracy and the Swiss Global Compact Network Switzerland for which he served as national focal point.

Our warmest thanks go to Thomas, and we look forward to welcoming Jan to the team.