New director at Société Electrique Intercommunale de la Côte (SEIC) SA
The Board of Directors has appointed Olivier Thorens to the position of Director of SEIC. He will take office on January 1, 2025, succeeding Dieter Gisiger, who will retire in 2025 after more than 20 years at the helm of SEIC.
Head of the "Installations & Building Solutions" business unit and member of SEIC's Executive Committee since 2022, Olivier Thorens was chosen from a large number of candidates following a lengthy selection process conducted by an external recruitment firm. His extensive experience in the energy sector, his solid technical and commercial skills, and his managerial abilities were all key factors in his success.
With a degree in electrical engineering from the EPFL and an Executive MBA from the University of Geneva, Olivier Thorens, 52, has built his career in three main stages. After graduating, he worked for ten years in the telecoms sector as a product manager, where he experienced the liberalization of the market. The second stage began when he entered the world of energy in 2009 at SIG, first as Product Manager for district heating, then as Business Plan Development Manager, notably in the thermal, energy services and telecoms sectors. In this role, he conducted profitability analyses for business units and investment projects. He was then responsible for managing SIG's holdings, comprising a portfolio of 35 SME companies operating in the energy, telecoms and infrastructure sectors in French-speaking Switzerland. The third stage led him to head the Energy-Telecom-Mobility business unit for the Lake Geneva region at Arnold from 2016 to 2022, before joining SEIC in 2022.
In appointing Olivier Thorens to take up the torch, the Board of Directors has opted for a seamless handover, enabling the development outlined by the current Director to continue. Antoine Nicolas, Chairman of the Board of Directors, comments: "We opted for an internal candidate. Far from being the obvious solution, this choice is, for the Board of Directors, the selection of a remarkably astute personality, with structured thinking, multiple experience and the guarantees of a successful handover." To ensure a smooth transition, Olivier Thorens will work in tandem with his predecessor for a period of time.
The Board of Directors would like to express its sincere thanks to Dieter Gisiger for his unstinting commitment over the past 20 years, which has enabled the company to expand its energy and telecommunications activities for the benefit of the region.