Cristina Schulze-Bergmann to become new director of Swiss Export Risk Insurance SERV

Press release 22.09.2025

Zurich, 22 September 2025 – The Board of Directors of Swiss Export Risk Insurance SERV has elected Cristina Schulze-Bergmann as the new director of SERV. She will take over from Peter Gisler on 1 April 2026, when he hands over operational responsibility due to his pending retirement. 

SERV’s Board of Directors has elected Cristina Schulze-Bergmann as the new director of Swiss Export Risk Insurance. She will succeed Peter Gisler, who has led the organisation with great commitment since early 2017. In view of his upcoming retirement, Peter Gisler will hand over the reins to his successor in full confidence on 1 April 2026. 

An experienced leader, Cristina Schulze-Bergmann will contribute her knowledge of the export world from various perspectives: as a longstanding player in the export business, as an active voice in associations and as a financing expert. This wide-ranging experience gives her a profound understanding of the challenges, conflicting priorities and opportunities in international business.

She is currently the Global Head of Export & Trade Finance at Rieter AG in Winterthur, where she heads a total of four teams and is responsible for the Group’s export and trade finance business. She has also been President of the Export Financing Commission at industry association Swissmem since 2021. Cristina Schulze-Bergmann was previously Director of Corporate Banking Coverage at Deutsche Bank AG in Zurich and also worked at the UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland and Netherlands-based ABN AMRO Bank N.V. 

She completed a Master’s degree in philosophy, economics and law at the University of Hamburg in 2003 and a digital excellence programme at IMD in Lausanne in 2021. In addition to German, she speaks fluent French, English and Spanish. 

The Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of SERV, Barbara Hayoz, commented on the election of the new director as follows: “Cristina Schulze-Bergmann outperformed numerous other applicants in the evaluation process for the publicly advertised role. SERV’s Board of Directors is convinced that she is the right person for the job: her career has been shaped by her involvement in complex international projects and the constant balancing act between risk mitigation and market development. As a result, she has learned how to navigate safely even in stormy times – whether on the exporter side or in the banking world. Cristina Schulze-Bergmann thus has all the qualities needed to further develop SERV in a challenging environment so that it can provide even better support to the Swiss export industry in the future.”

The future director of SERV made the following comments on her election: “I’d like to thank SERV’s Board of Directors for the trust they’ve placed in me. In a time of rapidly evolving global markets, I look forward to the many challenges and opportunities ahead of us. SERV will continue to consistently focus on the Swiss export industry – and in this regard, the necessary adjustments to the legal framework in particular may enable SERV to further strengthen its role as a reliable partner to the Swiss export industry.”