Prof. em. Dr. Pius Baschera

Pius Baschera is Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hilti Corporation, Schaan, Principality of Liechtenstein, since the beginning of 2007. Prior to his appointment as Chairman, Pius Baschera was Chief Executive Office of the Hilti Corporation for 13 years. ETH Zurich entrusted him with a part-time lectureship for innovation management in 1998 and then appointed him titular professor in 2001. Since January 2007 he is Professor of Practice, with a pensum of 25%.

Pius Baschera was born on November 12, 1950 in Zurich. He is a citizen of both Switzerland and Italy. On completing his studies to become a mechanical engineer and business economist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1974, he followed up by obtaining a doctorate (Dr. sc. techn. ETH). His professional career has focused fully on the Hilti Group: In 1979, he joined the Group as the Manager of Production Controlling of the Hilti Corporation before moving to Hilti USA in Tulsa, Oklahoma, to manage the company's corporate development function at his location. The positions of General Manager of Hilti (Switzerland) AG and General Manager of Hilti Deutschland GmbH were further stages in his career before, in 1990, he was appointed VP Market Region Europe 1 and, one year later, Member of the Executive Board in the function of the Chief Financial Officer. Pius Baschera is married and the father of two children. In the Swiss Federal Army, Pius Baschera serves as a major in the infantry.

The focus of Pius Baschera's research and lecturing is on innovation management. He alternates lectures on these subjects with case studies on strategy development and implementation, which are taken from practice and worked through with students. Pius Baschera is a Member of the Board of Directors of F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Basel, Schindler Group, Hergiswil, Member of the Advisory Board of Vorwerk & Co. KG, Wuppertal, and Ardex GmbH, Witten, and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Venture Incubator, AG, Zug.