Prof. Jürg Kessler, retired President of FHGR

Vice president

Jürg Kessler was rector and professor of business management at the University of Applied Sciences of Engineering and Business Administration HTW Chur from 1 September 2003 until his retirement on 31 December 2024. On 1 January 2020, the university became Switzerland's eighth independent public university of applied sciences under the new name University of Applied Sciences of the Grisons FHGR.

At the national level, Jürg Kessler represented the universities of applied sciences in various committees of swissuniversities, for example as a member of the board of the Conference of University Rectors, president of the Delegation for Higher Education Policy Strategy and Coordination, and vice-president of the Chamber of Universities of Applied Sciences. He was also president of Higher Education Management (HEM) and a member of the board of trustees of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF).

Jürg Kessler successfully completed his studies at ETH Zurich as a certified geomatic engineer (MSc ETH) and then worked for several years as an engineer at Kern AG. He completed his education at the University of Zurich with a degree in economics (lic. oec. publ. (MA UZH)).

After completing his studies, he worked for Zurich Insurance for eleven years, ultimately as a member of the Executive Management Board. He then decided to move to Unique (Zurich Airport Ltd), where he headed up the Buildings division as a member of the Executive Management Board. In this role, his responsibilities included overseeing the expansion of the airport as overall project manager, with a construction volume of CHF 2.1 billion. He was able to draw on his extensive experience in dealing with people during the grounding of Swissair, among other things; he was head of one of the four task forces in the crisis management team at the time.

Today, he performs various activities. Among other things, he is a regional judge, a member of the certification and accreditation commission of the FIBAA (Foundation for International Business Administration Accreditation of Universities), a member of the board of the Flury Foundation and president of the Prättigau Davos Forum.

Prof. Jürg Kessler

Denter Tumas 9

7013 Domat/Ems

Tel. +41 76 356 71 85

juerg.kessler@outlook.com