With immediate effect, Christian Thier has taken on the newly created role of Financial Services Industry (FSI) Lead. He reports directly to Catrin Hinkel, Country General Manager at Microsoft Switzerland, and is part of the Swiss Leadership Team. This change is a cornerstone of Microsoft’s strategy to empower customers and their respective industry. Financial Services is now a separate business unit, reflecting the importance of the vertical.
Microsoft has set out a clear strategy to address industry ecosystems in more depth, empowering customers in Switzerland to achieve more. “Today, our customers require individual solutions for their individual needs,» says Catrin Hinkel, Country General Manager Microsoft Switzerland. «For that reason, Microsoft Switzerland has decided to elevate the Financial Services Industry as its own business unit to reflect the importance of this industry and to serve our customers even better.”
Hinkel adds: “I am delighted to announce Christian Thier as our Swiss FSI Lead and newest addition of the Swiss Leadership Team, reporting directly to me. This newly created industry team with its profound know-how as well as trusted relations will further accelerate growth through digital transformation and new innovations for our FSI customers in Switzerland.”
Christian Thier has already been leading Microsoft’s FSI team in Switzerland as part of the Enterprise Commercial business for over 4 years now, after joining Microsoft in September 2016 as Global Business Director for UBS. Prior to joining Microsoft, Christian Thier spent over 15 years in the financial services industry in various leadership roles.
The Leadership Team of Microsoft Switzerland is now complete and consists of the following members: Catrin Hinkel (Country General Manager), Alexander Gaertner (Chief Financial Officer), Andrew Reid (Partner Business Director), Bjørn Vestergaard (Microsoft Consulting Director), Calin Turcanu (Marketing & Operations Lead), Christian Thier (Financial Services Industry Lead), Christian Widmer (Public Sector Director), Karim Tejani (Head of Legal), Martin Haas (Small Medium Corporate Director), Marc Holitscher (National Technology Officer), Michael Isaac (PR & Communications Lead), Roger Altorfer (Customer Success Unit Director), René Hürlimann (Specialist Team Unit Director), Shipra Singh (HR Director), and Sonja Meindl (Enterprise Commercial Director).