Peter Stähli is a graduate electrical engineer, with higher degrees in business management and energy technology. He is also a graduate of the University of Michigan executive program in innovation marketing. He has been an independent entrepreneur since 1992, having founded six companies and made three exits.
In 1999, he founded the Swiss Economic Forum together with Stefan Linder, today Switzerland’s leading business and networking platform. They have managed it for 18 years as CEO and Chairman. In the last 15 years, in his role as expert for the Swiss Economic Award, Switzerland’s major prize for young entrepreneurs, he has assessed over 1,500 start-up business plans and undertaken over 300 company visits involving detailed analyses and due diligence evaluations. In 2016, they sold Swiss Economic Forum (SEF) to the Neue Zürcher Zeitung newspaper. Within the SEF’s growth initiative, he helped provide start-ups and SMEs with CHF 100 million of growth capital (borrowed capital and equity). He is active as a recognized strategy expert in his own consultancy firm, sits on a number of boards of directors, and undertakes targeted investments in start-ups. He also has a consulting mandate for the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation, which is under the patronage of the Federal Council Guy Parmelin. Peter Stähli was born in 1964 and is Swiss.