Federal Council elects three new members to ETH Board
In the general election of the ETH Board for the 2017-2020 period, the Federal Council elected three new members and confirmed all of the incumbents who stood for re-election. The president of the ETH Board, Fritz Schiesser, was re-elected for another term.
At the recommendation of the Federal Department of Economic Affairs, Education and Research (EAER), the Federal Council elected the following two new board members: political economist Christiane Leister (*1955), who is the owner and president/chair of the Leister Group in Kägiswil, Obwalden, and Marc Bürki (*1961), CEO of Swissquote and holder of a Master's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering from the EPFL. The third newly elected board member is environmental scientist Kristin Becker van Slooten (*1962), Senior Scientist at the EPFL. She was nominated by the university assemblies of the ETH Zurich and EPFL as their delegate.
Beatrice Fasana, Barbara Haering and Beth Krasna were confirmed in office, along with Joël Mesot as delegate for the research institutes. Vice president Paul Herrling was re-elected for only one year due to the existing age limit for ETH Board members. The presidents of the ETH Zurich and the EPFL, Lino Guzzella and Martin Vetterli respectively, are ex officio members of the ETH Board. Martin Vetterli was elected president of the EPFL on 24 February; his term begins on 1 January 2017. The president of the ETH Board, Fritz Schiesser, who has held this position since 2008, was also re-elected.
Jasmin Staiblin, CEO of Alpiq Holding AG, Markus Stauffaucher, who is currently the delegate for the ETH Zurich and the EPFL's university assemblies, and Olivier Steimer, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Banque Cantonale Vaudoise, did not put themselves up for re-election. Patrick Aebischer will be stepping down as EPFL president at the end of the year and will therefore resign from the ETH Board.