Peter A. Pfister, Chairman
Peter Pfister holds a doctorate degree in economics from the University of Basel. While assistant at the university he co-founded BAK Basel Economics, a private economic research institute. In 1986 he moved to Kraft Jacobs Suchard where he held a number of different finance positions in Switzerland, the USA and France. In 1994 Peter joined Adia SA as CFO and after his instrumental role in the merger with Ecco, he was appointed CFO of Adecco SA, based in Redwood City, California. Subsequently he was President of Adecco North America and after the reorganization of Adecco’s professional specialist business CEO of Ajilon worldwide.
Having experienced the start-up business environment during the six years (1995-2000) he lived in Silicon Valley, Peter decided in 2001 to engage himself as a Business Angel. He is currently an investor and board member of several start-up and early stage companies in Switzerland. He also serves on the board of CTI Invest.
Igor Fisch
Igor Fisch is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Selexis. He is an accomplished protein chemist and molecular biologist. Igor completed his post-doctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Sir Greg Winter at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK. He joined the Center for Biotechnology UNIL-EPFL in Lausanne Switzerland as a group leader, working in the field of molecular evolution and peptide discovery. In parallel to his research and teaching activities, he received the De Vigier Prize and the NETS Best Prize with training in entrepreneurship both at the EPFL in Lausanne and at the Babson College in Boston, USA.
Gian-Luigi Berini
Gian-Luigi successfully started and sold a technology based start-up company, active in the Life Science Industry. In addition, he is member of the board of various start-ups and of FONGIT, Geneva’s hi-tech business incubator. In this capacity, he represents FSI, a Geneva based Seed-Money Fund. Gian-Luigi spent more than 10 years as line- and general manager in multinational companies and has been an entrepreneur for more than 8 years. Gian-Luigi holds a degree in economy and marketing (Zurich, Bern), his expertise is in the field of Sales & Marketing, Organization and General Management.
Daniel Fustier
Daniel Fustier has enjoyed a diverse international career as General Manager, Consultant and Private Equity Investor. He is currently member of the core faculty of MCE (Management Center Europe in Brussels), focused on leadership and strategy implementation.
He has enjoyed hands on and strategic managerial experience in very large as well as very small organizations and has been active in the electronics, IT, telecommunication and life science industries. His focus has always been profitable growth in all market conditions and his track record includes successes in new product creation, business development, change management, business turnaround, activity redeployment, company acquisitions and private equity financing. He has been board director for several high tech and life science companies and advisor to private equity venture capital funds.
From 1979 to 2001, Daniel Fustier worked for Hewlett-Packard, where he occupied European and global general manager positions for various software products, health care services and medical supplies.
In 2001, he became strategy consultant and interim executive. He was COO and then Chairman of the Board of Directors of an internet/ telecom software company. He operated as advisor for leading venture capitalists such as Sofinnova Ventures and Vision Capital and had an extended assignment as a strategy consultant for a very large global software company.
In 2003, he joined the pharmaceutical industry as Managing Director/Head of site of Covance CLS SA (Switzerland) (400 employees) and as Global Vice-President, in charge worldwide of new acquisitions, new technology investments, IT application development and support, Quality Assurance and Regulatory Compliance.
Daniel holds a Masters of Science degree in Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry from the University of Toronto, Canada, an Industrial Engineering degree from Ecole Centrale Lille, France, and an MBA from INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France
He was born in Lyon, France. During his career he has had extended term work assignments in Switzerland, Canada, USA, UK, Germany and South Africa.
José de Chastonay
José de Chastonay obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Bern in Medical Microbiology, with an emphasis on Virology. He subsequently earned his MBA at the European University in Montreux. After leaving academia, he joined Ares Serono SA to convert the hormone extraction procedures to mammalian cell based production. Subsequently, he joined Roche Diagnostics to launch and market select Cobas immunology instruments and reagents internationally. In 1991, he went to Bachem AG, a fine chemicals and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient contract manufacturing organization. He held positions as President and COO of two US based Bachem Business Units and presided over Bachem Americas until 2007. José then became CEO of Irvine Scientific Inc., a leader in Assisted Reproductive Technologies, Cytodiagnostics and contract manufacturer of optimized powder media for mammalian cell fermentation.
He has served on the Boards of Bachem Bioscience Inc., Bachem California Inc., Irvine Scientific Inc. and IS Japan, as well as being on the Scientific Advisory Board of Rapid Pharmaceuticals, Inc.. Currently, José heads the Life Science practice of Wombat Capital Ltd., a strategic and financial advisory firm.