Philipp Bolliger: With Clear Goals into the Executive Board

Philipp, you have recently become a member of the executive board at FERI (Schweiz) AG – congratulations! How have you settled into your new role, and what has changed most noticeably for you in your day-to-day work?

Thank you very much! Thanks to my colleagues on the executive board and our staff, I settled in very quickly and well. There are now significantly more meetings, and I am increasingly focusing on strategic matters. In addition, I am now much more involved with leadership topics than I was in my previous role as team leader.

What particularly motivates you in your new role, and what vision would you like to realise together with your team in portfolio management?

We aim to develop investment concepts that embody Swiss quality and deliver maximum value for our investors. Naturally, growth is also central to our approach: together with my team, I intend to manage assets totalling CHF 2 billion at FERI (Switzerland) AG over the next three years. The FERI Group already manages assets of more than CHF 50 billion across Europe.

You joined FERI at the end of 2017 and progressed from portfolio manager to the executive board. Which stages or moments along this journey were particularly formative for you?

I learned early on that, both professionally and personally, there are always decisive moments in life when you have to choose a path and pursue it consistently. I have had several opportunities to change my career direction, but I always kept my goal in mind: what I still want to achieve at FERI. Regular self-reflection has helped me with this, rather than giving up at the first setback.

Looking back on this path: what is one skill or attitude that you only had to acquire once you started your professional career, and which is particularly important to you today?

Resilience and perseverance! A career path is rarely linear, and setbacks are inevitable. These may include, for example, key colleagues leaving the organisation or a challenging economic environment. That is why I always set myself a goal that I aim to achieve within five years. This keeps me on track, regardless of how circumstances may change.

Shortly before joining FERI, you completed your Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a major in Banking & Finance at HWZ. What role did your studies play in opening up this opportunity for you?

It was certainly necessary for me to have a bachelor’s degree in order to be given the opportunity in portfolio management. I consider the fact that the programme was compatible with my professional commitments to be a particularly important factor. In the long term, professional experience outweighs theoretical knowledge, and I was able to apply what I learned during my studies directly to my day-to-day work.

When you think about specific projects or decisions from your professional life: which content or ways of thinking from your studies were you able to apply directly in practice?

During the four-year, part-time degree programme, I learned how to develop perseverance, set goals for myself, reflect on my progress, and learn from my mistakes. Not every subject or module came easily to me. However, I learned how to deal with such challenges and to manage my limited time as effectively as possible.

Looking back, in which area did you benefit most from your studies at HWZ – professionally, methodologically, or personally?

I particularly benefited from the fact that the degree programme follows a similar timeframe to the way I set my goals – four years is a marathon, not a sprint. It was therefore important during my studies to keep the goal in sight and to overcome the challenges along the way.

I greatly valued the lecturers’ professional, work-related expertise. I always felt that they had a strong connection to «real» life. Their everyday examples were extremely helpful in bridging the gap to theory, which was sometimes very abstract.

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  Bachelor in Business Administration HWZ

  Start September & March

  Duration 8 semesters

Today, you share your knowledge as a lecturer yourself. Has this changed your understanding of education and practice?

I also lecture at a part-time university of applied sciences in Stuttgart and enjoy being on the other side of the lecture now. My understanding has not changed; rather, I have felt even more convinced that my path, balancing professional life and study, was exactly the right one. I always try to share examples from my own experience with my students, as these help them to better understand complex financial topics and to apply them independently.

What personal advice would you give to current and future HWZ students who are aiming for a career in finance and investment?

Choose a work-compatible degree programme – it will help you to gain a deeper understanding of complex subject matter. Set yourself goals before, during and after your studies. What do you want to achieve? Do you aspire to take on a management role in the future and drive forward strategic topics? Or would you prefer to be actively involved and enjoy direct contact with clients? I often see young people who have started or completed a degree but do not really know why they are doing it. In my opinion, you should study to achieve a career goal and not just to get a degree.