The Swiss Business Hub Canada, the Canadian arm of Switzerland Global Enterprise, the official Swiss organization for investment promotion and export support, had a change of leadership during the summer. After four years as “Hubleiter”, Eros Robbiani moved to a new role in Bangladesh with the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs.  Mr. Steffen Milner arrived in August to become Head of the Swiss Business Hub Canada and Deputy Consul General. He, his wife, and son now live in Montreal, where the Business Hub is headquartered at the Swiss General Consulate there. 

Steffen has worked for many of the past years prior to coming to Canada at SECO, the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs, in roles that involved significant international exposure. He has also worked with the European Free Trade Association in Brussels and in the private sector in Switzerland and Belgium.

Since taking up his new responsibilities Steffen has been busy familiarizing himself with Switzerland Global Enterprise (S-GE) operations and settling his family in their new home in addition to getting to know the Canadian market. His first visit was to Kingston, Ontario at the invitation of the Kingston Economic Development Corporation.  Steffen was pleased that companies with a Swiss connection were a significant part of the tour. This included a visit to Li-Cycle, a Canadian company specialized in lithium-ion battery recycling which recently established its European HQ in Switzerland and to Canadian company Octane Biotech, which is majority owned by Swiss company Lonza. His next visit was to Vancouver where he met with the Consul General and other partners there.

Most recently Steffen was in Toronto for the first time where he had two full days of meetings that allowed him to see the dynamic nature of Canada’s largest city. He met with innovation partners such as MaRS, the Vector Institute, Life Sciences Ontario and NEXT Canada, had a personal tour of Waterfront Toronto, and met with Swiss companies Fairtiq and Incentage. Steffen also had a fruitful meeting with Sandra Leuba, President of the SCCC and Alexandra Soriano, outgoing President of the SCCC and new Honorary Consul, about ways to increase collaboration between the Chamber and the Swiss Business Hub.

A further change at the Hub is that Sonja Mueller, who has been Deputy Hub Leader for seven years with a focus on supporting Swiss companies interested in doing business in Canada, resigned in September.  She and her Swiss/Canadian partner have started a business that provides city walking tours on your phone. Although it is just getting off the ground, demo tours for Montreal, Halifax and Vancouver are currently available at www.tourbird.ca.  After a number of interviews, a candidate to replace Sonja has been identified and is expected to start in mid-November and will join Ms. Sarojini Vasant, Head of Investment Attraction at the Hub. Although the Hub is the official organization for developing business ties between Switzerland and Canada, members of the SCCC can have a role to play in communicating the message that Switzerland, ranked the most innovative country globally twelve years in a row, is an ideal location for Canadian companies to establish European operations.  In this regard, the Hub welcomes any suggestions that SCCC members have for reaching out to dynamic Canadian companies.

The outlook is optimistic for Swiss companies to do business in Canada and for Canadian businesses to expand to Switzerland. The Hub has a good pipeline of companies they have met with and that are interested in what Switzerland has to offer as a gateway to Europe. As business continues to open up to in-person meetings and events and people get on planes again, it allows for much better connections between the Hub and Swiss and Canadian companies.

The Hub will continue to focus on similar economic sectors as over the past year, which are personalized health, artificial intelligence, robotics and blockchain for investment attraction and medtech, cleantech, cybersecurity and clean mining on the export side.

In a crowded international business attraction field, Switzerland and Canada are similarly quite often overlooked as they are smaller players next to larger economies – but both have much to offer. In 2023, the Hub, together with Switzerland Global Enterprise’s Zurich HQ, will be expanding communication efforts to raise Switzerland’s profile with Canadian companies and to ensure that Hub events have the attendance that will allow them to have the highest impact.