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Dr. Richard T. Meier, Executive Vice President and Delegate for International Affairs of the SWX Group, will depart the company on 1 December 2006 and go into retirement.
Richard T. Meier is a pioneer of electronic trading in Switzerland. His dissertation discussed the organisation and automation of the securities exchange. In 1973, he joined the Zurich stock exchange, where, from 1979, he was responsible for operational management.
His career was marked by many technological innovations, organisational improvements and major expansions intended to adapt the capacity of the exchange to a rapidly increasing turnover. The foundation of Soffex and the rise of securitised options presented new challenges for traditional securities trading. Richard T. Meier launched the initiative for creating the SWX Indices. In time, the exchange moved to its new Zurich headquarters. Mr Meier was prominently involved in developing the organisational and operational foundation for merging the stock exchanges of Zurich, Basel and Geneva into the SWX Swiss Exchange.
At the international level, he headed the Working Committee of FIBV, the international stock-exchange organisation, for a period of ten years. After transferring Switzerland's securities trading to the SWX Swiss Exchange, the latter benefited from Richard T. Meier's excellent contacts with international exchange organisations. Mr Meier also carried out important preparatory work for adjusting stamp tax and was closely involved in the formulation of the Corporate Governance Directive. Richard T. Meier is a co-author of Der helvetische Big Bang, a history of Switzerland's stock exchanges that was published in July of this year.
The SWX would like to take this opportunity to thank Richard T. Meier for his many years of contributing to the Swiss financial centre and wish him all the best for the future.
