Competences and Profiles
Rüdiger O. Assion
Rüdiger O. Assion is the founder and managing partner of BOC Consult. The trained journalist and businessman worked as Managing Director for the US communications consultancy Edelman and was responsible for financial communications in the DACH region. Prior to that, Assion was a member of the board of the Swiss derivatives bank Leonteq AG and was responsible for the bank's communications and investor relations. Assion worked for Deutsche Börse AG for 10 years in a senior position in Frankfurt and, as Managing Director Group Communications, was responsible for the Group's global communications and corporate marketing. In previous positions in the automotive industry (BMW Group, Volkswagen Group, General Motors), Assion developed his expertise in the field of labor relations, among others. Assion is a graduate of the Akademie für Publizistik, Hamburg, and the SEP program at Stanford University, Palo Alto.
Ernst Primosch, MSc.
Ernst Primosch is the founder and managing partner of BOC Consult. He is internationally recognized as an expert in communications, brands and marketing. The trained economist, engineer and journalist has an excellent network and extensive experience in the EU, the USA and Asia. With a proven track record in leadership positions in top international companies and consulting giants, he has led prominent Global 500 companies to significant growth and success as a consultant. He became internationally known for his work at Henkel and its transformation into a global FMCG and technology group, but also as CEO of prestigious consulting firms such as Hill & Knowlton and Edelman. To date, Ernst Primosch has provided expert advice to hundreds of companies. He has received numerous awards for his outstanding work in the areas of communication, branding and marketing.
Dr. Philipp Rösler
Dr. Philipp Rösler began his career as a doctor in the German Armed Forces but left the army as a staff doctor to devote himself full-time to politics in 2003. He was Chairman of the Free Democratic Party in Lower Saxony as well as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Economic Affairs, Labor and Transport. In 2009, he joined the German government as Federal Minister of Health in Chancellor Dr. Merkel's second cabinet. In 2011, Philipp Rösler was elected Chairman of the Free Democratic Party in Germany and changed his focus to become Federal Minister of Economics and Technology. In the same year, he also became Vice Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2013, he left politics and joined the board of the World Economic Forum in Geneva for four years. This is how he found his way to Switzerland, where he settled with his family in Zurich and has since held advisory mandates and board seats in numerous innovative companies. In 2020, he founded the consultancy Consessor AG in Switzerland. BOC Consult is a direct cooperation partner of Consessor AG.
Jan Schoch
Jan Schoch is an investment banker who has worked for international banks in London and Zurich. He worked in various positions for Lehman Brothers, Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan and the Swiss stock exchange SIX Swiss Exchange. He later became active as an entrepreneur and founded Leonteq AG, among others, which received a full banking license from the Swiss financial supervisory authority FinMa as a derivatives provider. He is also involved in real estate and hotel projects in Switzerland and Serbia. Jan Schoch holds a Master's degree from the University of St. Gallen and has received several awards as a CEO and entrepreneur.
Michael Krons, Msc.
Michael Krons is a journalist. He has worked for public broadcasters including WDR, ARD and ZDF. There, the political scientist was responsible for the Tagesschau and Tagesthemen programs and later for the investigative magazine "frontal". At the ARD/ZDF information channel Phoenix, he took over responsibility as deputy program director. In earlier years, Krons worked as an editor for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. He then headed the news channel n-tv and built up the political editorial team. Krons has received several prestigious awards for outstanding journalism. He is a lecturer at the University of Bonn and at the ARD/ZDF Media Academy. As a consultant, he specializes in strategic communication, crisis communication, crisis and media training and moderation. Michael Krons studied political science, German studies, education and film studies in Cologne and Berlin.
Dr. Ulf Gartzke
Dr. Ulf Gartzke has a long track record of working in the transatlantic political, business, and technology space. During 2019-2022, he served as CEO of Brainloop AG, a leading Munich-headquartered SaaS provider of highly secure executive collaboration solutions. From 2004 to 2013, Dr. Gartzke headed the Washington office of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, the political foundation of the CSU, where he was responsible for relations with the United States and Canada.
Dr. Gartzke previously worked at the World Economic Forum in Geneva and the World Bank in Paris. He serves on a variety of corporate and not-for-profit boards, including Brainloop AG in Munich, Mplus Group in Zagreb, Prudentia Capital in Paris, Crypto Valley Partners in Zug, ELNET-Germany in Berlin as well as the Indo-Pacific Forum in Washington, DC. Dr. Gartzke studied at the University of Augsburg and holds advanced degrees from Georgetown University and Sciences Po Paris, as well as a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He is fluent in German, English, French, and Spanish, and conversational in Italian.
Klaus Franz
Klaus Franz is a trade unionist, former European Works Council member with over 30 years in office and former Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Adam Opel AG. As the highest employee representative in the struggle for survival of Opel and General Motors Europe (GME), he became the decisive crisis manager and the face of the company in politics and the public, particularly between 2008 and 2010. Klaus Franz sees himself as a bridge builder between employees, management and society. For this, he was awarded the international "Communicator of the Year" prize and the "Golden Crest" of the city of Rüsselsheim, among others. By 2012, the qualified social worker had represented around 60,000 employees in Europe. Since 2013, Klaus Franz has been advising employee representatives and managers on change and restructuring processes with the research company "Forum Urbanum".