Speakers D&I Week 2024
Dr. Thomas Bauer
Thomas Bauer is Head of Economic Policy at Travail.Suisse, the independent umbrella organisation for employees. In this role, he focuses on issues relating to employees’ wages and working conditions. Thomas Bauer is also a member of various extra-parliamentary committees and the Suva Council. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Fribourg.
Prof. Dr. Stephan Alexander Böhm
Stephan Böhm is Professor of Diversity Management and Leadership and Director of the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on leadership, human resources and diversity management. He is particularly interested in occupational inclusion and the health effects of digitalization and flexibilization of work. Stephan Böhm has published numerous articles in leading scientific journals and has won a number of important research awards. He works as a consultant for organizations in all sectors, advising them on topics such as the development of agile, inclusive and healthy leadership.
Dr. Anna Brzykcy
Dr. Anna Brzykcy is Senior Project Manager DE&I at the CCDI and a systemic therapist. She previously worked as a Learning & Development Expert at the Institute for LifeLong Learning at the Technical University of Munich. There she led trainings on the role of leadership in active diversity management. This was also a core topic of her dissertation, which she completed at the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen. Her research on stigmatization and mental health at work appeared in top-tier journals (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology, Human Relations).
Robert Franken
As a freelance consultant, Robert Franken works on the transformation of organisational cultures with a special focus on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging (DEIB) and a systemic perspective on privilege. Previously, he was CEO of urbia.de and Chefkoch.de, among others. He co-founded the Male Feminists Europe platform and is an honorary ambassador for HeForShe Germany.
Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor
With 2 decades of experience across 4 continents, Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor (SOM-HSG) is an award-winning speaker, teacher, and scholar, recently honored with the HSG Latsis Prize and a TEDxZurich talk. Her work has been featured in top academic (e.g., Journal of Applied Psychology) and popular outlets (e.g., Harvard Business Review and Forbes). Currently funded by a 1.2-million CHF grant from the Swiss National Science Foundation, she and her team craft sought-after courses, research, workshops, and keynotes spanning psychology and management on the topics of DEI, leadership, humor, and (social) sustainability.
Prof. Dr. Isabella Hatak
Isabella Hatak is a full professor of SME management at the University of St. Gallen and director of the Swiss Institute of Small Business and Entrepreneurship (KMU-HSG). Furthermore, she acts as academic director of the Intensivstudium KMU. In her research, teaching and community engagement, she focuses on the value-creating behaviour of the individual entrepreneur and the psychological influences upon that entrepreneurial success including wellbeing. Her research has been published in leading journals such as the Journal of Business Venturing, Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, the Journal of Management Studies, and the Journal of Business Ethics, among others, and is regularly featured in the media.
Sybille Hug
Sibylle has held management positions in HR at SBB for 15 years. She was responsible for HR consulting and HR personnel policy at the Group and is now Head of HR for the Infrastructure Division with over 10,000 employees. Sibylle holds an EMBA in International Management from the University of Zurich, an MAS in General Management from the University of Rochester Bern and is a qualified Human Resources Manager.
Dr. Nora Keller
Nora Keller, PhD, is a senior researcher at the Competence Centre for Diversity & Inclusion. She is responsible for qualitative research design and analysis. Nora Keller received a Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University, where she also completed her Master’s degree. In her dissertation, she used insights from business scholarship to understand organizational development and strategic innovation in non-state organizations during civil wars.
Tamara Kern
Tamara Kern is an external PhD candidate at the Competence Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI), focusing on research areas related to diversity and inclusive leadership. She holds a Master’s degree in Business Administration and is currently pursuing her PhD in Management. She serves as the Director of Talent Management, Total Rewards & HR in a Fortune Global 500 corporation, and brings substantial practical experience to her academic pursuits, particularly in executing significant corporate D&I initiatives.
Prof. Dr. Lucia M. Lanfranconi
My passion is inspiring individuals, organizations, and policymakers towards greater gender and social equity. I do this as a group leader and professor for diversity, equity, and inclusion at the Berne University of Applied Sciences (BFH) and beyond.
Dr. Ines Hartmann
Ines Hartmann is Co-Director of the Competence Centre for Diversity and Inclusion and is responsible for the HSG Diversity Benchmarking together with Nicole Niedermann. She leads other company-specific projects on inclusive leadership and D&I, such as in-depth D&I analyses (quantitative and qualitative) or the development of D&I strategies. She gives workshops, holds lectures and teaches at universities and other schools on the topic of D&I as well as Strategic Management. She publishes on topics such as diversity management and inclusive organizational culture. She holds a PhD in Social Sciences and a Master’s degree in Strategy and International Management from the University of St. Gallen.
Dr. Florian Krause
Florian Krause is senior research fellow and lecturer at the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St.Gallen and at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Work and Employment Studies at Leibniz Universität Hanover. With philosophical and economic perspectives, he is particularly concerned with ethical challenges of digital transformation processes, sustainability, and questions of diversity and identity.
Agota Lavoyer
Agota Lavoyer is a social worker specialising in gender-based and sexual violence. As a counsellor and head of the victim support services in Bern and Olten, she has supported and accompanied countless victims of sexual violence and their families. Today, she works as a freelance counsellor and speaker and is committed to raising awareness of sexual violence and removing the taboo surrounding it. She is also the author of the bestselling children’s book “Ist das okay?” (“Is this okay?”) on the prevention of sexual abuse against children. Her new book “Jede_ Frau” (“Every Woman”) about a society in which sexual violence is trivialised and normalised will be published in May 2024.
Dr. Susanne Nef
I focus on issues of social participation. I pay particular attention to the topics of equality, equality from an intersectional perspective, violence in gender relations, social change and the associated wider social issues.
Prof. Dr. Julia Nentwich
Prof. Dr Julia Nentwich is an associate professor for psychology. In her research she is interested in questions of inclusion, identity and change. Together with Dr. Gaby Schambach, she supports companies in the inclusion of male managers with “Leaders for Equality”. At the Research Institute for Organisational Psychology she leads the research area on gender and diversity. She has many years of experience in interdisciplinary research in organizational research and especially with qualitative research methods.
Nicole Niedermann
Nicole Niedermann works at the Competence Center for Diversity and Inclusion at the University of St.Gallen. She is part of the management team and is responsible for corporate projects, diversity benchmarking and human resources.Since 2019, she has been advising and supporting organizations in various industries in the implementation of their DE&I measures, giving trainings and workshops for managers, HR and employees. In particular, she deals with the topics of DE&I strategy development and analysis, inclusive leadership, intersectionality and unconscious bias. Nicole Niedermann holds a Master’s degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Business Administration from the University of Fribourg and has been working in the field of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion for more than ten years, including several years in the private sector, where she was responsible for DE&I in a global function.
Dr. Huong Pham
Huong Pham is a postdoctoral researcher at the Competence Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) working with Prof. Jamie Gloor. Her research interests include topics on diversity, cognition and leadership. Prior to joining the CCDI, she completed her Ph.D. in Psychology at LMU Munich in Germany where she also worked as a trainer and facilitated workshops on leadership and collaboration in the workplace.
Alkistis Petropaki
Alkistis Petropaki has been the Managing Director of Advance Gender Equality in Business since 2015. She has more than 20 years of management experience with international consumer goods companies such as L’Oréal, Nestlé, Mövenpick and Lindt. Before joining Advance, she was Country Manager Switzerland at Yves Rocher. With her involvement at Advance, she wants to support women in becoming the architects of their own careers. Alkistis holds a Master’s degree in Management from ESCP-Europe and a degree in German and Psychology from the University of Athens.
Christian Pierce
Christian Pierce is Senior Researcher at the CCDI. At the same time, he is doing his PhD in organisational studies and cultural theory at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on anti-racism in multinational companies from a human rights perspective. He graduated from the United States Military Academy with a degree in Economics and holds an M.Sc. in Business from the COPPEAD Graduate School of Business at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil with a qualitative thesis on cultural diversity. He has consulted to several organisations in the US, Latin America and Europe on D&I, specialising in ethnic equality.
Dr. Louisa Riess
Dr. Louisa Riess (neé Bloedorn) is a researcher at the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen. Her work revolves around the question “Inclusion – but how?”. In particular, she is investigating which success factors are necessary to enable the inclusion of people with disabilities in companies and what managers and employees can specifically do to create an inclusive work environment.
Dr. Ella Roininen
Dr. Ella Roininen is the Head of DEI at the University of St. Gallen. She has educated on Gender, Diversity and Inclusion since 20 years globally, and held leadership roles both in academia and business. Ella holds a BBA from Schiller International University, MSc in International Management from the University of St. Gallen and Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a Doctorate from the University of St. Gallen and the Nordic Research School of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies. Ella works with the concepts of voice and awareness. She wants to create spaces free of structures and practices of discrimination, and show how we can include ourselves and others through transferring feminist, intersectional and postcolonial concepts into strategy and policies, attitudes and practices of inclusion.
Michel Rudin
Michel Rudin is a communicative, versatile person with experience as a managing director, public affairs manager, lecturer and politician. Michel Rudin studied and graduated in history, philosophy, business administration and law. Michel Rudin likes to get things done, make progress and achieve goals, but also in hectic at times – Michel Rudin is not easily flustered.
Severin Ruoff
Severin is the co-founder of folx global, a company that uses virtual reality to raise awareness of unconscious biases. With a background in cyber security consulting and a passion for diversity, Severin brings a global perspective, having lived in multiple countries and speaking six languages.
Hans Rusinek
Hans Rusinek is writing his doctoral thesis (IWE-HSG) on the meaning of work and its role in modern organizations. He also lectures on the future of work at Fresenius University in Hamburg and is a Fellow of the Club of Rome’s Think Tank 30. Until 2020, he was Associate Strategy Director and first employee of the purpose consultancy of the Boston Consulting Group, BrightHouse. As a journalist, he also contributes to the debate between business and society, for example in brand eins, Capital, DIE ZEIT and Deutschlandfunk, for which he was awarded the Ludwig Erhard Foundation’s 2020 Prize for Business Journalism. His book “Work-Survive-Balance” about the future of work for our grandchildren will be published by Herder in October 2023.
Prof. Dr. Gudrun Sander
Gudrun Sander is a titular professor of business administration with a special focus on diversity management, co-director of the Forschungsstelle für Internationales Management and co-director of the Competence Centre for Diversity and Inclusion. She researches diversity and inclusion from a strategy, leadership and corporate culture perspective, leads the national diversity benchmarking and is an academic expert in various international and national committees.
Dr. Gabriele Schambach
Dr Gabriele Schambach is co-leader of the project “Leadership for Equality” at the University of St. Gallen. She works as a consultant, trainer and speaker at Genderworks. For more than twenty years she has been working on gender and diversity for more equal opportunities in companies. As a trained industrial clerk and political scientist with a doctorate, she combines her knowledge of systemic organisational development and transactional analysis with scientific findings and corporate practice.
Sophie Schepp
Sophie Schepp is a psychologist and research associate at the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen. Her research interests lie in the area of proactive work design for different employee groups and contexts, e.g. flexible and hybrid working as well as diversity and disability in the workplace.
Raphael Summermatter
Raphael Summermatter is Project Manager at the Competence Centre for Diversity & Inclusion. He holds a master’s degree in economics from the University of St. Gallen. During his studies, he was able to acquire valuable software skills, which he can now apply to various company projects. His work at CCDI focuses on projects concerning equal pay between women and men.
Margit Vunder
Margit is known for her expertise in shaping and driving Diversity, Equity & Inclusion agenda. She has a proven track record in leading large-scale cultural transformations and has extensive experience in leadership and talent development. Her personal purpose is to help people make better choices, so that everyone can live, lead, and love authentically. Margit lives in Zurich with her two sons, loves theater and can be often seen jogging along the Limmat.
Dr. Verena Witzig
Verena Witzig works as an expert for the Diversity & Inclusion team at the University of St.Gallen. Her areas of expertise are implicit bias trainings in academic recruitment processes and how to combine studies, career and family. Both her degree in International Relations and her doctorate on the division of labor between separated parents come in handy here, as her job requires a sound understanding of diversity management as well as a large dose of diplomacy. She teaches bias training courses at various universities in Switzerland and Germany.