DAVID W. SYZ
The Businessman: Broad experience in the Private Sector
After his studies at the law school of the University of Zurich David Syz earned a MBA at the INSEAD in Fontainebleau. He started his professional career in 1973 as Management Assistant at the Union Bank of Switzerland then moved to the Electrowatt Group where he acceded to the Membership of the Executive Board as Head of the Industries and Electronics Division. In 1996, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Schweizerische Industrie-Gesellschaft Holding AG (SIG), Neuhausen, a stock-listed corporation active in the packaging industry. Presently he is chairman of the board of directors at Huber und Suhner AG, a stock-listed corporation in the field of high tech connectivity solutions. He chairs the Climate Cent Foundation, an organization mandated by the Swiss Government to reduce CO2 emissions in the framework of the Kyoto Protocol and he is member of the Board of Directors of Credit Suisse.
The Statesman: Responsible for the Foreign Economic Policy of Switzerland
After 25 years in the private sector, David Syz was asked by Federal Councillor Pascal Couchepin to become the Director of the newly created State Secretary for Economic Affairs. In this function David Syz was responsible for the Foreign Economic Policy of Switzerland and involved in negotiations all over the world particularly in the field of Trade, Development, and Foreign Direct Investments.
The Filmmaker: Documenting economical aspects of the globalized world
In 2004 David Syz returned in the private sector but is spending a great deal of his time on making documentary movies about various facets of the global economy:
- His first project «STEEL WAR» was about global trade, its impacts on directly and only marginally involved countries, on jobs and welfare in the developed and developing world and about the functioning of the system in place.
- His second movie «BEYOND A DOLLAR A DAY» deals with the fight against poverty. How can poverty be eradicated in a more efficient sustainable way, since more than a billion of people still live with less than a dollar a day. A greater focus should be given to investments in the developing countries should from microcredits up to foreign direct investments by multinational corporations.
- The third movie «HUNGER IN A WORLD OF PLENTY» deals with hunger. Why do we accept that consistently about one billion of people are starving in this world that every 5 seconds a child dies from hunger? The movie shows that hunger is not a problem of resources but a problem of distribution which could be solved if the will were there. Solutions would be available even at reasonable costs.
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In his fourth documentary «CHAEBOLS UND CHABOLAS – The Battle for Work», the topic is unemployment, its origins and possible ways to fight it. In the battle for work and survival, everyone is competing with everyone else. And even though unemployment has its global dimension, it is fought against primarily on a national approach. Which could be possible solutions? David Syz follows tracks in South Korea and Spain.