Peter Ziswiler
"Different" is not necessarily wrong - just different - and an opportunity to learn from each other!
Even as a young person, I had a strong desire to work as practically as possible and therefore completed a commercial apprenticeship at a large Swiss retail company. I quickly realized that I was interested in economics and wanted to deepen and broaden my professional horizons. I therefore studied at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts and graduated with a Bachelor's degree. This was later followed by an EMBA at the University of Lucerne.
After my studies, I returned to the retail sector and worked in sales and sales management. It was a formative experience to take responsibility for more than 50 employees as a very young sales manager. Later, I gained valuable experience in purchasing and management development.
In 1994, I moved to Landis & Gyr as HR Manager for Marketing and R&D. During a turbulent time - the company was first sold to Elektrowatt and shortly afterwards to Siemens - I gradually took on more responsibility. In 2000 I was given the opportunity to join Siemens in the USA as HR Manager and in 2003 I became Head of two global divisions with around 27,000 employees.
In 2006, I felt ready to take on the role of CHRO at Sika in Baar - a listed Swiss SMI company in the construction industry. In 2013, I moved to the same role at Georg Fischer AG (GF) in Schaffhausen, a globally active SMIM company with around 20,000 employees in various technology areas such as water systems, machine tools, automotive and aerospace parts. I retired at the beginning of 2025, but am still working on a project at GF until the end of the year.
After almost 20 years as CHRO in global industrial companies, I have a wide range of experience and expertise - from aligning HR strategy with business strategy, organizational development and transformation (including cultural transformation), leadership, executive development and training, global compensation management, talent management, recruitment and development at top management level to topics such as compliance, diversity and IT projects.
I got to know and appreciate the cooperation with my colleagues from TMAG during my time at Sika. Since then, we have worked on many projects together (me as a client, TMAG as a professional consulting company) and, above all, we have gotten to know and appreciate each other.
I am very pleased to be able to contribute my experience and knowledge in my new role as Senior Partner and member of the Board of Directors. However, I am more than aware that my experience as CHRO will only be helpful and useful in my new field of activity if I can contribute, adapt and develop it accordingly. I am very much looking forward to this personal learning journey.
My passion has always been working with people, nurturing their talents and developing high-performance teams. I am convinced that people who enjoy their work achieve outstanding results. They expect respect and appreciation - and want to be challenged accordingly.