DEOur Board of Directors & Advisory Board
Our Board of Directors and Advisory Board bring together individuals from research, entrepreneurship, consulting and many years of leadership practice. This breadth of perspective is our sounding board: it fills knowledge gaps, challenges us and sharpens our decisions. Our Advisory Board in particular combines proven expertise across governance, risk and compliance, helping us to continually rethink and deliberately advance the course of our business.
Board of Directors
Lawyer Reto C. Zbinden, owner of Swiss Infosec AG and co-founder of Swiss GRC AG, has been working as a consultant and trainer for 30 years in addition to his company management activities. In the areas of integral security, information security, data protection and IT security, he is perceived as an accomplished specialist and connoisseur of the "state of the art" and best practice.
His areas of expertise are security and organisation, certification in the field of information security and the legal aspects of information security, such as archiving, data protection and contract law in the field of IT/information security. His expertise in the latest security and data protection developments in Switzerland and abroad is appreciated beyond the country's borders. In his work, he always focuses on practical conformity and economic efficiency.
Besfort Kuqi is the founder and Chief Executive Officer of Swiss GRC AG. He has been involved in the topics of Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) for over 10 years. His focus is on the digitalisation, integration and optimisation of management and control systems in companies and organisations. Specifically, he deals with issues around risk management, internal control systems (ICS) and compliance and security management.
As a Project Management Professional (PMP), Besfort Kuqi supports nationally and internationally active companies and organisations in developing, implementing and presenting company-specific analyses and concepts to solve organisational and technical problems in GRC processes. He has co-developed the Swiss GRC Toolbox, a software solution for the systematic mapping and management of the many GRC disciplines, since its inception, successfully introduced it at many companies and organisations, and has thus contributed to higher efficiency, transparency and acceptance in matters of management and control systems.
Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. Stefan Hunziker is Professor of Enterprise Risk Management and Internal Control Systems at the Lucerne School of Business, Institute of Financial Services Zug IFZ. He is a member of the Institute's Executive Board and heads the Risk & Compliance Management Competence Centre at IFZ. For more than 15 years he has been committed to further developing risk management in practice, always considering current scientific findings.
Stefan Hunziker leads the continuing education programmes CAS Governance, Risk and Compliance (CAS GRC) and the specialist course Corporate Risk Management at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. As head of the MSc International Financial Management, he also trains international students in risk management and internal control. Prof. Hunziker has various teaching assignments in the areas of risk management, internal control systems and financial management.
He coaches and advises organisations on the establishment and operation of risk management. Stefan Hunziker is the author of numerous books and articles, especially on holistic risk management and internal control systems. He is heavily involved in practice-oriented research and leads major federally funded projects (Innosuisse). He regularly gives presentations at national and international conferences and is thus in close contact with the international risk community.
Anuschka Küng has been the owner and Managing Director of Acons Governance & Audit AG since 2007. She advises companies across a wide range of industries on corporate governance, internal audit, risk management, internal control systems (ICS), compliance and process management.
In the field of internal audit, she acts as Head of Internal Audit for outsourced mandates. She also supports organisations with external quality assessments and provides advisory and coaching services to executives and boards of directors. In risk management, internal controls and process management, she supports clients from initial design through to operational implementation, including serving as Risk Manager or as the designated internal control specialist. Further areas of expertise include implementing specific compliance requirements and supporting organisations in addressing regulatory findings and remediation measures.
Anuschka Küng serves on the board of directors of a Swiss life insurance company. She also lectures at universities of applied sciences on various corporate governance topics. Before joining Acons, she worked for several years as Risk & Compliance Officer at an asset management company and subsequently served on its board of directors for eight years. Prior to that, she managed advisory and audit engagements as well as internal audit assignments at a Big Four firm.
Dr. Patrick Wegmann is Chairman of the Board of Directors and COO of Lifetec AG, based in Dietikon ZH, a full-service provider for operational first aid and integral risk management. He studied and obtained his doctorate in financial market theory at the University of St. Gallen and has more than 20 years of software and consulting experience in risk management.
In 1999, Dr. Patrick Wegmann co-founded Avanon AG, a leading software provider for operational risk management. After the acquisition of Avanon AG by Thomson Reuters, he was Head of Product Business for Enterprise Risk at Thomson Reuters until the beginning of 2019. Patrick Wegmann is a lecturer in risk management at the University of Basel, the Lucerne School of Business, the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland, Kalaidos UAS and the Institute of Financial Planning.
