Christoph Aeschlimann

Overview

Christoph Aeschlimann
Born	1977 (age 48–49) Basel, Switzerland
Citizenship	Switzerland
Education	Computer science; Master of Business Administration
Alma mater	École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL); McGill University
Occupation	Business executive
Employer	Swisscom
Known for	Chief executive officer of Swisscom and advocacy for Switzerland as a deep-tech nation
Title	Chief executive officer
Term	1 June 2022 – present
Predecessor	Urs Schaeppi
Board member of	Swisscom; Fastweb; Association Suisse des Télécommunications (asut); Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation; IMD Foundation; Deeptech Nation Switzerland Foundation
Children	2
Awards	EPFL Alumni Award (2022)

👤 Christoph Aeschlimann (born 1977 in Basel, Switzerland) is a Swiss business executive who has served as chief executive officer (CEO) of Swisscom, Switzerland's majority state-owned telecommunications and information technology group, since June 2022. A computer scientist by training with an MBA from McGill University, he previously worked in software development and consulting, culminating in the chief executive role at the Swiss engineering firm ERNI before joining Swisscom's group executive board in 2019. As CEO he has overseen Swisscom's push into cloud services, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, the continuation of heavy investment in broadband and mobile networks, and an expansion in Italy built around its Fastweb subsidiary.

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Early life and education

🧬 Early years. Aeschlimann was born in 1977 and grew up in Basel, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, before later living in the French-speaking region and abroad, experiences he has described as forming a “multicultural” Swiss identity. Raised in a multilingual environment and fluent in German, French and English, he has argued that this background helps him navigate diverse teams and cross-border business.

🎓 Academic training. After completing his schooling, he studied computer science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL), graduating in 2001 as an Informatik-Ingenieur, and subsequently obtained a Master of Business Administration from McGill University in Montreal, Canada. This combination of technical and business education has been cited as a foundation for his later leadership, blending engineering discipline with strategic and financial understanding.

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Early career in software and consulting

💻 Odyssey and early management roles. Aeschlimann began his career in 2001 as a software developer at Odyssey, a financial technology provider, where he soon took on responsibility for leading development teams and managing projects as he moved into line management roles. In 2006 he briefly worked for the innovation consultancy Zühlke before returning to Odyssey in more senior positions, including responsibility for key accounts across Europe and the leadership of the company’s Swiss business.

🚀 BSB and ERNI. In 2011 he joined the banking software company BSB as general manager for the DACH region and the Commonwealth of Independent States, expanding his exposure to international financial clients. He moved in 2012 to ERNI, a Swiss software engineering and consulting firm, where he first led the Swiss business and from 2017 served as chief executive officer of the ERNI Group, overseeing international growth and what he later described as a track record of “delivering customer-centric solutions and driving growth and profitability”. His tenure at ERNI established him as a digital-focused executive and set the stage for his transition from mid-sized consulting firms to a national telecom incumbent.

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Career at Swisscom

📡 Entry into Swisscom. Aeschlimann joined Swisscom in early 2019 as head of IT, network and infrastructure and as a member of the group executive board, taking charge of the company’s technical backbone, including its mobile and broadband networks and central IT platforms. In this capacity he played a prominent role in the rollout of fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology in Switzerland and in the modernization of Swisscom’s infrastructure, emphasising cloud services and cybersecurity as the company positioned itself as a fully integrated ICT provider.

🧭 Appointment as chief executive. On 3 February 2022 Swisscom announced that Aeschlimann would succeed Urs Schaeppi as chief executive officer with effect from 1 June 2022, following a planned succession process led by chairman Michael Rechsteiner. At the time of his appointment he was 45 years old, around 17 years younger than his predecessor, and had been with Swisscom for only three years, a relatively short tenure for the head of a semi-public incumbent, leading commentators to describe the change as a generational shift. Rechsteiner stated that the board sought continuity and digital expertise rather than a radical break, remarking that the task was not to “turn everything upside down” but to execute an existing strategy consistently. The appointment came despite network outages in 2020 and 2021, when emergency numbers were temporarily unavailable and which occurred during Aeschlimann’s period of responsibility as chief technology and information officer; Swisscom’s leadership acknowledged the issues but did not view them as decisive in the succession process.

📈 Strategic focus as CEO. As chief executive, Aeschlimann has framed his main objective as accelerating Swisscom’s evolution from a traditional telecommunications operator into a digital services leader, arguing that a company that does not develop and grow will eventually decline. Under his leadership the group has intensified investment in growth areas such as cloud computing, data services, artificial intelligence and cybersecurity, while continuing to devote roughly 1.7 billion Swiss francs annually—around one-fifth of revenue—to network infrastructure including 5G antennas and fibre-optic broadband. In 2023 he launched an “AI offensive”, pledging around CHF 100 million for AI infrastructure and partnerships and positioning Swisscom as a provider of AI and big-data solutions for Swiss business customers. At the same time he has repeatedly emphasised Swisscom’s role in “driving digitisation in Switzerland” and strengthening the country as a “deep-tech nation”.

🌍 International expansion and reorganisation. Aeschlimann’s tenure has also been marked by a renewed appetite for international expansion centred on Italy. Swisscom has owned the broadband and telecom provider Fastweb since 2007, and in 2024 it agreed to combine Fastweb with Vodafone Italy in a transaction designed to create a larger-scale challenger in a highly competitive Italian market. Aeschlimann has argued that the deal would give Swisscom a “long-term stable and sustainable position” in Italy and ultimately strengthen the group, which remains majority owned by the Swiss Confederation, by diversifying earnings and supporting dividends. At the organisational level, he has simplified Swisscom’s top management structure, adding a small group-level leadership tier while establishing separate country organisations for Switzerland and Italy in order to combine clearer accountability with greater agility in local markets. He has characterised these changes as balancing efficiency and innovation, seeking faster decision-making without undermining longer-term projects.

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Financial performance and compensation

💰 Executive pay. As chief executive of a “bundesnah” (state-affiliated) company, Aeschlimann’s remuneration is publicly disclosed and often debated in Switzerland. For 2023 his total compensation was reported at approximately CHF 1.85 million, broadly in line with the remuneration received by his predecessor in his final years, and following strong results his package for 2024 was increased by around 6 percent to roughly CHF 1.97 million. Public discussion around Swisscom and other state-linked companies has included calls from some political actors to cap top management pay at about one million francs, illustrating the sensitivity of executive compensation in Switzerland.

📊 Company results and shareholding. During Aeschlimann’s early years as CEO, Swisscom’s financial performance has been broadly stable despite competitive and regulatory pressure. In 2023 the group generated revenue of around CHF 11.1 billion, a modest increase from the previous year, and reported higher net profit supported by growth in IT services and continued strength at Fastweb in Italy. Swisscom’s share price, traditionally regarded as defensive, rose by about 12 percent in 2023 and then gained more than 30 percent in 2025, outperforming many European telecom peers and reflecting market confidence in the group’s strategic direction. Aeschlimann himself holds only a small equity stake in Swisscom—around 1,700 shares as of the end of 2024—underlining his role as a professional manager rather than a controlling owner.

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Board roles and industry engagement

🏛️ Industry associations and foundations. Beyond his executive duties, Aeschlimann holds a number of board and foundation mandates in the Swiss technology and business community. He sits on the board of the Association Suisse des Télécommunications (asut), the main trade association for the country’s telecom industry, and is a trustee of the Swiss Entrepreneurs Foundation, which promotes investment in start-ups, as well as a member of the foundation board of IMD, the business school based in Lausanne.

🤝 Deep-tech ecosystem and ventures. In 2023 he co-founded and became president of the Deeptech Nation Switzerland Foundation, a public-private initiative backed by Swisscom, UBS and other partners that seeks to increase the flow of venture capital into Swiss deep-tech start-ups and strengthen the country’s position as an innovation hub. Within the Swisscom group he has chaired the board of directors of the Italian subsidiary Fastweb and previously sat on the Swisscom Ventures investment committee, giving him oversight of corporate venture investments in technology companies. He is also involved in cross-industry initiatives such as Digital Switzerland, which aim to accelerate the digital transformation of the Swiss economy.

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Personal life and leadership style

🏠 Family and residence. Aeschlimann is married with two children and lives with his family in Geneva in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, commuting or coordinating regularly with Swisscom’s headquarters in the Bern region. He has described family life as very important and has said that he strives to be present for his children despite the demands of running a large company, for example by avoiding evening meetings when possible.

🏔️ Recreation and personality. In interviews he has portrayed himself as an outdoor enthusiast who enjoys sports, hiking and skiing in the Swiss mountains, activities that he links with balance and resilience in his professional life. Journalistic profiles characterise him as calm and analytical yet “dynamic” in pushing initiatives forward, noting that he combines a reserved demeanour with decisiveness when key decisions are required.

🧑‍💼 Management approach. Stylistically, Aeschlimann presents himself as a modern, collaborative executive. He points to the “Du-Kultur” at Swisscom, where employees address one another informally, and says he encourages staff at all levels to raise ideas or customer issues directly, including in chance encounters such as lift rides. In published profiles he has stressed a leadership philosophy built on empathy, trust and collaboration, stating that his role is to provide direction and enable teams rather than to micromanage daily operations. He has also noted that he deliberately reserves time for reflection and reading, ranging from industry literature to fiction, as a way to generate new ideas.

📚 Public presence and anecdotes. While not as visible in social media as some technology leaders, Aeschlimann occasionally shares reflections on leadership and teamwork on platforms such as LinkedIn. One widely noted anecdote concerned a strategic project code-named “Falcon”, after the completion of which his team gave him a LEGO Millennium Falcon set as a humorous thank-you gift, a gesture cited in coverage as illustrating a down-to-earth and playful side behind his formal CEO role.

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Controversies and challenges

⚠️ Network outages. Aeschlimann’s period as a Swisscom executive has coincided with several operational challenges. In 2020 and 2021 Swisscom suffered network outages that temporarily affected emergency numbers, leading to criticism from regulators and politicians and prompting an internal programme to strengthen monitoring and resilience. At the time he was responsible for network and IT operations as chief technology and information officer, and he later worked with then-CEO Urs Schaeppi to address the failures; when he was named as Schaeppi’s successor, Swisscom’s chairman acknowledged the incidents but stated that they were not decisive in the board’s succession deliberations.

🧵 Fibre-optic dispute with competition authorities. A longer-running issue has been Swisscom’s dispute with Switzerland’s Competition Commission (COMCO) over the design of its fibre-optic network. COMCO ordered Swisscom in 2020 to halt the roll-out of a new architecture that used a single shared fibre to serve multiple households, arguing that the configuration could restrict competition from alternative operators, and Swisscom subsequently lost appeals against the precautionary measures. In April 2024 COMCO imposed an 18 million-franc fine on Swisscom and set a 2025 deadline for the company to adapt its network to a fully open-access model with separate fibres to each household, a requirement that commentators estimate will entail substantial additional investment. Swisscom has argued that the mandated design is unnecessarily expensive and that it believed its rollout complied with competition law, but under Aeschlimann the company has committed to meeting the 2025 deadline while continuing to contest aspects of the decision in public debate.

🏭 Workforce and offshoring debates. Another sensitive topic has been Swisscom’s approach to staffing and the relocation of certain functions abroad. In 2023 the company announced plans to expand offices in Riga in Latvia and Rotterdam in the Netherlands, shifting several hundred IT and back-office roles to these locations in order to reduce costs and increase efficiency, while maintaining the bulk of its roughly 13,000 Swiss-based staff in Switzerland. Aeschlimann has justified the move by arguing that persistent price pressure from customers requires productivity gains and that automation and limited offshoring are necessary to remain competitive, but unions and some politicians have warned against an erosion of high-quality domestic jobs at a state-linked employer. He has said that research and development and customer-facing roles will remain concentrated in Switzerland, and has framed the international hubs as complementary capabilities.

🇮🇹 Risks around Italian expansion. The expansion strategy built around Fastweb and the planned combination with Vodafone Italy has also attracted scrutiny. Critics have recalled earlier episodes in which Swisscom attempted to acquire foreign operators such as the Irish company Eircom, leading to political backlash and restrictions on major foreign acquisitions by the Swiss government. Aeschlimann has argued that the Italian deal differs from those earlier plans because Swisscom has been active in Italy for many years and because the transaction remains within its core business of telecoms and IT, relying on teams already on the ground. Observers have nevertheless highlighted political and regulatory risks in Italy and the significant integration costs associated with the transaction; Swisscom recorded a charge of about €93 million in 2025 related to Vodafone deal costs, and Aeschlimann has stated that it could take two to three years before synergies and higher profitability are fully realised. He has said that as majority shareholder the Swiss Confederation must be willing to accept entrepreneurial risk if Swisscom is to grow abroad and maintain its capacity to pay dividends to the state.

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Views and public positions

🧪 STEM skills and talent pipeline. Aeschlimann has been outspoken about Switzerland’s shortage of information technology specialists and the need to strengthen science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. He has repeatedly called for more young people, and in particular more young women, to be encouraged to pursue careers in technology in order to ensure that Swiss companies have access to the skills required for digital transformation. Under his leadership Swisscom has continued apprenticeship and trainee programmes and invested in its employer brand, but he has stressed that corporate initiatives cannot substitute for a broader educational effort.

🌱 Sustainability and ESG. On environmental and social issues, Aeschlimann has largely continued Swisscom’s established sustainability strategy, which has earned the company recognition from international rankings as one of the world’s most sustainable telecom operators. Swisscom reports that it sources its electricity from renewable energy and steadily improves energy efficiency—by about five per cent in 2021 alone—and during the European energy crisis it prepared contingency plans to maintain network operations even in the event of power shortages. The company also emphasises diversity in management and runs programmes for apprentices and young professionals, although Aeschlimann has acknowledged that increasing the share of women in technical roles remains a challenge.

🧠 Digital regulation and artificial intelligence. In interviews, Aeschlimann has advocated for what he describes as pragmatic, innovation-friendly digital regulation. He has criticised lengthy permitting procedures for building mobile antennas and other infrastructure in Switzerland, arguing that complex rules and strict radiation limits slow network upgrades and hinder the rollout of technologies such as 5G. On artificial intelligence he has argued for minimal but targeted rules, suggesting that regulation should focus on clear issues such as data protection and ethics rather than imposing broad constraints that could, in his view, impede innovation by Swiss and European companies. Within Swisscom he has championed the development of services such as the “MyAI” chatbot, a Swiss-hosted generative AI system that he says he uses frequently and which he presents as an example of trustworthy domestic digital infrastructure.

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Recognition and legacy

🏅 Awards and broader role. In 2022 the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne awarded Aeschlimann its EPFL Alumni Award, honouring his achievements in industry soon after his appointment as Swisscom’s chief executive, and in 2023 he returned to the campus to give a lecture on “Ensuring Swiss Tech Leadership”. Commentators have described him as a “young captain at the helm of a large tanker”, referring to the task of steering a more than 170-year-old former monopoly through rapid technological change, and he has become a regular speaker at forums and initiatives focused on Switzerland’s digital competitiveness. His leadership at Swisscom, together with his involvement in initiatives such as Deeptech Nation Switzerland, has positioned him as one of the figures associated with efforts to secure the country’s role as a deep-tech and digital innovation hub.

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