Susaanne Ruoff becomes Swiss Post's new chief executive in September 2012
BERN, SWITZERLAND – Swiss Post is about to become one of the few major Swiss companies able to boast of a woman heading its business, after naming Susanne Ruoff, 53, its new chief executive effective 1 September 2012. She will replace Juerg Bucher.
Ruoff, an economist with degrees from the University of Fribourg, including an executive MBA, with courses at Insead in France and the University of St Gallen, is currently country manager and CEO of BT (British Telecom) Switzerland Ltd.
She has held the job since April 2009, with responsibility for expanding the key account business and acquiring new clients. She lives in Crans-Montana in canton Valais.
She previously worked at IBM Switzerland in several capacties that included marketing, sales at service. Her 20 years with the company saw her a member of the executive management team with responsibility for global technology before she left.
Swiss Post says of her appointment: “In particular, owing to her pronounced competencies in the digital realm, Susanne Ruoff can crucially strengthen Swiss Post’s Executive Management in view of future challenges. In the coming years, Swiss Post’s customers will increasingly ask also for electronic services. Swiss Post thus wants to continue implementing its strategy of connecting the physical with the electronic postal world in a targeted manner. Thanks to her competencies, Susanne Ruoff will actively support this change. Throughout her activities in multinational companies, she has also acquired a solid experience in the interaction with differing cultures and mentalities, a factor that played an important role in her appointment.”
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – A turnaround hailed in media in the US and France as “dramatic” has seen former IMF head Dominique Levi-Strauss freed from house arrest on his own recognizance, as the credibility drops of the woman who says she was sexually assaulted by him. The judge, without making a public statement, has released Strauss-Kahn and agreed to return the $6 million in bail he posted, but the prosecution says it is not dropping the case.
Strauss-Kahn’s passport remains in the hands of US justice officials.
Links to other sites: CNN, Le Monde (Fr), Washington Post
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Police were contacted by people at the old Prangins train station who observed a woman who appeared troubled, hanging around the station at 12:40 Wednesdday 15 June. But the emergency team was unable to save her from being hit by a train. The woman sat down on the edge of the quai and a passing train badly injured her lower limbs, leaving her in serious condition at the Chuv university hospitals in Lausanne.
Police say the woman, of African descent, has no known address.
Julia Gillard is the new prime minister of Australia, after Kevin Rudd stepped down in a last-minute shuffle of the Labor Party, ending Rudd’s two-and-a-half years at the helm.
She is the first woman to serve in the role. Gillard, a lawyer, says she will call for a general election in coming months, but did not give a date.
The Prime Minister elected praised Rudd but says she opposed him in the end because the party was losing its way.
Links to other sites: CNN, Sydney Morning Herald
Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Switzerland’s second death from A/H1N1 flu has taken place just a week after the first, but doctors point out that the patient, a woman over 50 with diabetes, could well have died if she contracted regular flu. TSR quotes the head of public health in Zurich as saying that in a normal year Zurich alone has some 100 flu-related deaths, generally caused by complications from existing health problems.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – A 25-year-old Valais woman has been taken to prison, accused of defamation against six people, after telling police in March 2009 that she had been gang-raped by her former boyfriend and five other men in a garage in Carouge. She described in graphic detail the sexual relations that took place, in August 2008, but police became suspicious when she remained vague about the identity of the former boyfriend, whom she clearly knew well.
