speakers 2022
Manuela Bärtsch Forster
Manuela Bärtsch Forster was born in 1976 in Landquart, studied Business Administration at the University of St.Gallen and holds an Executive Master in Strategic Human Resources Management from Bocconi University & Cornell University. In addition to study and work stays in Geneva, Chile, Canada, Sweden and the USA, she has now settled in St. Gallen, where she lives with her husband and three children. After 16 years in various HR functions in industry (including ABB and Bühler), she has been working at Helvetia Insurance since 2017, currently as Head People Attraction & Diversity.
Prof. Dr. Stephan Alexander Böhm
Stephan Böhm is Associate Professor for Diversity Management and Leadership and Director of the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St. Gallen. His research focuses on inclusion, leadership, human resources and diversity management. He advises numerous companies on topics of healthy leadership, digitalisation and the management of demographic change.
DR. NILIMA CHOWDHURY
MARTINA EGLI
As Co-CEO of the Bern-based software development and design agency Zeilenwerk, Martina Egli is responsible for all innovation and strategy topics of the company. Zeilenwerk has realized well-known apps such as Smartvote and sees itself as a driving force of next-gen agencies worldwide. In 2019, she completed her Master’s degree in Business Innovation at the University of St. Gallen. She was also recently named to the “30 under 30” list by Forbes.
ANDREA FIMIAN
Prof. Dr. Jamie Gloor
With more than 15 years of experience on four continents, the award-winning lecturer, researcher and speaker explores topics such as gender/diversity and soft skills (e.g. humour) in the context of the future of work and leadership. She is currently funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation and works with her team at the CCDI of the St.Gallen School of Management.
Nicola Glumann
Nicola Glumann, M.Sc., is a research associate at the Center for Disability and Integration at the University of St.Gallen (CDI-HSG). She conducts research on diversity, inclusion and new work. As part of the research project “Inclusion Champions Switzerland”, funded by the Federal Office for the Equality of Persons with Disabilities (EBGB), she is developing effective intervention strategies to promote inclusion in the workplace in cooperation with leading companies.
Theresa Goop
Theresa Goop heads the Wage Centre at the Competence Centre for Diversity & Inclusion and advises companies on the process and method of equal pay analyses. She supports companies on their way to non-discriminatory pay based on objective findings from HR data. In her previous work as an economic consultant, she applied economic models and methods to various problems faced by international companies.
Dr. Ines Hartmann
Ines Hartmann is member of the CCDI Management Team and is responsible for the St.Gallen 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.
René Heiz
Within Swiss Post Group, René Heiz has worked in various areas, from logistics and public transport to financial services. He was able to implement various projects and help shape CEC negotiations in several subsidiaries. He has been Head of the Compensation & Social Insurance unit since 2017.
“Swiss Post attaches great importance to equal pay, and with transparency in job advertisements, we are taking another important step in this direction”.
Dr. Anna-Katrin Heydenreich
Anna-Katrin Heydenreich works as a specialist for Diversity & Inclusion and as lecturer at the University of St. Gallen. She is an economist by training and has a strong background in sustainability, a topic she approaches from the perspective of social psychology and discursive organizational psychology. Her doctorate on stakeholder engagement processes lead her to assignments on collaboration and engagement processes in Jerusalem and Switzerland.
Simon Huber
Simon Huber, M.Sc., is an industrial and organizational psychologist. In addition to his experience in science and research, he has worked in the areas of employer branding and social media marketing. Since 2019, he has been a specialist in health management at Swiss Post. He is leading the implementation of the “Inclusion Champions Switzerland” project. Over a period of three years, it is the main focus to examine the status of inclusion in the organization (“Inclusion Barometer”) as well as develop, implement and evaluate a training to promote inclusion (“Inclusion Bites”).
Florian Krause
Florian Krause works as Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer at the Institute for Business Ethics at the University of St.Gallen and the Insitute for interdisciplinary Work and Employment Studies at the Leibniz University of Hanover. With philosophical and economic approaches, he is particularly focused on with ethical challenges of digital transformation processes, sustainability, and questions of diversity and identity.
Fumi Kurihara
Fumi Kurihara is the Founder of #OUR_ and Producer/Host of #OUR_racism, a podcast where people of different backgrounds share their personal experiences of racism from around the world. Fumi is currently pursuing her PhD on digital health and dating platforms at HSG, where she also works as Research Associate at the Institute for Information Management (HSG-IWI). Her professional interests lie at the intersection of global health, digitalization, diversity and inclusion.
She holds a Master in International Affairs with a specialisation in Global Health from the Geneva Graduate Institute, and a Bachelor of Arts from Waseda University in Tokyo, Japan.
Dr. Noémi Michel
Dr. Noémi Michel is an anti-racist and feminist scholar, teacher, activist and cultural worker. She is a lecturer in political theory in the Department of Political Science at the University of Geneva and teaches regularly at the Geneva School of Art and Design (HEAD). Dr. Noémi Michel has been a Visiting Professor of Diversity Politics at HU University and has completed research stays at Northwestern University, UC Berkeley, and EHESS Paris. She is currently researching different understandings of anti-racism in public debates and institutions in Europe, as well as diasporic black feminist theories of political voice.
Prof. Dr. Julia Nentwich
Julia Nentwich is a titular professor of psychology and a private lecturer in business administration. She leads the research focus on gender and diversity at the Chair of Organizational Psychology. She conducts interdisciplinary research using qualitative research methods on issues of equality and diversity, change and resistance, integration and inclusion. Among other things, she is currently an associate editor for the international journals “Gender- Work and Organization” and “Equality, Diversity and Inclusion”.
Nicole Niedermann
Nicole Niedermann is member of the CCDI Management Team. Together with Ines Hartmann she manages the annual St.Gallen Diversity Benchmarking study and leads customized I&D projects. She holds a master’s degree in Organisational Psychology and Business Administration from University of Fribourg. Having worked on DEI for more than ten years, her expertise lies in I&D strategy development, I&D analysis, managing Unconscious Bias, Inclusive Leadership and on designing inclusive HR processes.
Alkistis Petropaki
Alkistis Petropaki has been the Managing Director of Advance Women in Swiss 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 aims to help women become 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 a project manager 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.
RENÉE RÄDLER
Renée Rädler joined Hexagon in January 2017 within the Manufacturing Intelligence division in EMEA before taking the role of Executive Vice President Global HR in 2021. The division Manufacturing Intelligence has today 8800 employees. Renée has more than 20 years’ experience in HR roles in large international companies.
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 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
Gabriele Schambach is the owner of Genderworks (www.genderworks.de) and works as a consultant, trainer and speaker. She has been working on gender and diversity for more equal opportunities in companies for more than twenty years. Gabriele is currently co-leader of the “Leadership for Equality” project at the University of St. Gallen (www.leaders4equality.ch). As a trained industrial administrator and PhD political scientist, she combines her knowledge of systemic organisational development and transactional analysis with scientific findings and corporate practice.
Melissa Schenk
Melissa Schenk studied Business Administration with a focus on Intercultural Management and focussed on D&I during her Diploma of Advanced Studies in HR Management. Along with her private and professional experience working with people with disadvantages, she has a great interest for this topic.
Since 2014 she is HR Manager at Hexagon Manufacturing Intelligence and is working together with the CCDI from the University of St.Gallen on various topics on the “D&I Journey – with an impact”.
Manuel Wiesner
Together with his brother, Manuel Wiesner owns the Wiesner Gastronomie AG family with around 1,000 employees. They are among the 20 largest restaurateurs and are known for helping to shape the gastronomy industry with their unconventional and courageous ideas. They were one of the first companies to introduce full wage transparency. Yet for them, this is only the tip of the iceberg – the right corporate culture is needed as a basement.