The Lawyer Who Prefers Connecting People to Writing Contracts

If I have ten seconds, I say I am a lawyer. The more accurate answer is that I am a social entrepreneur. For me, being a social entrepreneur means that bringing people together has become the central theme of my professional life over the past thirty years. I spend a large part of my time on boards, and I would say I spend the other half bringing people together.

I am probably on the boards of a dozen companies, typically technology companies, biotech companies, and AI companies in Switzerland and the United States. I advise venture funds and private-equity funds in the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. What I have not done for fifteen years is sell billable hours as a lawyer. On boards, I am still the lawyer on the board or supervisory board: I understand the legal issues and the needs of entrepreneurs. But I no longer do the heavy lifting of drafting contracts or negotiating M&A transactions. I simply do not have the time. I also invest in deep tech, especially in the United States and Switzerland. And, as I said, I spend about half my time maintaining the networks I have built over the last twenty-seven years and constantly creating new ones.

Exactly. Very traditionally, I always wanted to become a corporate lawyer. I studied in St. Gallen at the University of St. Gallen because it was the Swiss university most focused on business law. I qualified as a lawyer and began at a top firm, but became self-employed very early. I was employed for only one year in my entire life, as a trainee. In Zurich, that traineeship lasts a year. Since then I have been self-employed: first as a lawyer, then building my own practice in Zug, which later merged into a larger Zurich firm. I was a partner there for ten years, and then moved into a consultancy role. That meant I no longer sold hours, but concentrated on board work and on building business communities.

Ultimately, it goes back to a friend’s sixtieth birthday. He had been a professor in Switzerland. We were trying to remember how we had met, and he said he could not remember. When we were trainees, he had founded a trainees’ club. I had completely forgotten about it. That showed me that the instinct had always been inside me: wherever I was, I felt the need to bring people together. The reason is probably that I like people—especially interesting people and people who make things happen.

Everyone has the same twenty-four hours in a day, and it is impossible to stay in touch with every person one finds interesting. Out of the desire to remain connected with as many interesting people as possible, I began creating clubs and communities wherever I worked. That way I could bring together the people I found interesting and make sure I did not lose touch with them. It is a very efficient way to stay in conversation with many people, to remain connected, be inspired, and generate ideas. That curiosity about people has run through my entire professional life. It is probably why I have founded around ten different communities over the years, many of which are still thriving and relevant to the business world.

The people who interested me were successful people—broadly defined. That could be a successful entrepreneur, the CEO of a large company, or an arts executive. Successful people are invariably busy. They are usually already well connected and involved in many organizations, so they have no time for just another club. I therefore asked myself what might make them invest time. Successful people are generally interested in meeting other successful people.

As a young lawyer, I was not a compelling reason for someone to spend time with me. They would assume I only wanted to sell them legal hours. So I needed an organization and a community that already contained relevant people. The people I invited would join because of the other interesting members, not because I was there. I am still convinced that this is the central point: the quality of a community stands or falls with the quality of its members. Every community I have created has been characterized by being extremely selective and sticking stubbornly to its criteria.

At the beginning I knew nobody. I came from an ordinary background, and my university friends were still at the start of their careers. I had to enter a group of people I had no access to, and I was the youngest person there. If you want to do something similar, you need one or two good names. Then you can leverage those names and use them to reach other people. Getting the first one or two is partly luck and serendipity. In my case, Switzerland’s leading business newspaper, Bilanz, featured me at about thirty as one of the most successful lawyers in my field. That was unusual for someone so young, and it led to invitations from companies that brought relevant people together.

At one of those events I met two young people who were already influential and still are today. I told them, in the spirit of Bill Gates, that I had a club for relevant people and that they were invited. In reality, I had only a loose group, nowhere near as exclusive as I made it sound. But both accepted. With those two names, I had a basis for approaching other relevant people: I could say that they were already members. That gave me a foot in the door and allowed me to build a genuinely relevant network.

Each community has its own profile. The Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable is the nucleus of the other communities I have created. I define an entrepreneur as someone who makes things happen, especially someone who has achieved a great deal early in life. That might be a CEO or chairman of a company with revenue of a billion Swiss francs or more, an ultra-high-net-worth individual with substantial investable assets, or an opinion leader. These were the people I wanted: people who make things happen. I applied the same criterion to the first two members, which gave me the basis for multiplying the network.

I could not abandon those criteria as the network grew. Anyone I approach wants to know who else is involved. If someone runs a ten-billion-dollar company and feels that the group has become a general club with no common level, they will not be interested. A functioning community needs a certain degree of homogeneity: people must live in a broadly similar world and speak a similar language. If it is too scattered, you may have an interesting evening, but you do not create a community. Clear criteria are central, and you cannot casually deviate from them.

My learning is that communities always need someone putting energy into them. I spend at least half my time investing energy in the existing communities. You cannot assume they will run by themselves. You have to enjoy it; otherwise you should not start, because it generally is not self-sustaining. Mine continue to develop beautifully—in geography, dynamism, and the quality and depth of their relationships—but I am permanently behind them, adding energy. That is essential.

How do you persuade very busy people to keep making time? You have to be relevant. One way is through content; another is by addressing something that matters to members. I call the other element friendship, or genuine relationships and exchange. WorldMinds is driven strongly by content. It is now a global community of 1,500 members across Europe, the United States, and the Middle East: scientists, business leaders, politicians, and former politicians. We create a stage for leading experts from Harvard, Stanford, ETH, and elsewhere. Around fifteen to twenty Nobel laureates are members. They share cutting-edge knowledge in a tightly focused eighteen-minute format at in-person events. The content is exclusive and carefully curated.

The Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable takes a different approach. Its tagline is ‘to create a unique circle of friends.’ At this level, such a circle is rare. The network includes group CEOs and chairmen of companies such as AXA, Mercedes-Benz, Henkel, Adecco, Vivendi, and Rheinmetall, with about 500 senior executives across several European countries. There is always a content segment—for example, a CEO explaining a transformation or what culture means at their company—but it is secondary to the personal exchange among members at dinner.

I always conduct a Q&A with the host, and I ask personal questions: Will you follow the guidance you gave at the last press conference? What was your biggest ‘oh no’ moment? Where did things really go wrong? What did you learn, and what advice would you give your younger self? This personal sharing sets the tone. When the host answers honestly, it tells everyone in the room: no corporate small talk, please. This is a protected platform.

One long-standing member, a billionaire and founding figure of a major Swiss company, was asked about his biggest regret. In front of forty business leaders, he said it was not spending more time with his father, who had died three years earlier. He had been so busy that he assumed there would always be more time. That kind of deeply personal sharing rarely happens in a group of such prominent people. ‘It is lonely at the top’ sounds like a cliché, but it is true. The value of this community is that people can exchange openly with others who understand their world.

There is an annual calendar, usually published twelve months in advance so people can save the dates. The host, venue, and time are announced in advance. In Switzerland I expect to hold about eighteen events in 2026, including three international events to which members from all chapters are invited. We have recently been to Abu Dhabi, and we are going to Tallinn and Helsinki, where we meet a head of state, a defense minister, or leading local entrepreneurs. Typically, we meet in groups of thirty or forty from all the countries represented in the Roundtable. Every event has a member as host, whether at Swiss Re, UBS, Zurich Insurance, Rheinmetall, Mercedes-Benz, or Commerzbank. Each host brings a personal perspective and content, but the core is always the same: personal sharing and a candid Q&A.

Six people operate and develop the Entrepreneurs’ Roundtable. WorldMinds has its own organization, probably around a dozen full-time employees. The Club zum Rennweg also has a dozen employees, a board, and a management team. Each community has its own structure and governance. I could not do this alone anymore.

For the first eight years, nobody paid a membership fee. I did it out of curiosity about people and because I enjoyed it enormously. Then a hedge-fund billionaire friend pointed out that he had made hundreds of millions through people he met in the network. I realized that I was a small lawyer selling hours while subsidizing an operation that created significant value for others. I began charging membership fees in 2008. It was difficult for me psychologically—I wondered whether I was allowed to send these people a bill after building such a wonderful circle of friends. But it was accepted without a problem. The only feedback I received was: why are you charging so little? The value is enormous. The fees now cover the organization, travel, and part of the time I invest.

Exactly. People want access to my network of 500 business leaders. I hope they also value my pragmatism, my legal background, and my forward-looking, action-oriented approach. There are many good lawyers with business expertise, but there are not many with this kind of network. That is what makes the work interesting, and it is how I finance my mortgage.

I am repeatedly surprised when CEOs who have just taken a new position tell me they are too busy internally and with shareholders to make time for a business community. I have watched for twenty-seven years how top CEOs rely on this network in business, social, and private situations. Someone may need access to the best specialist because their spouse is ill. They may need a reference on a person they want to hire or appoint to a board. They may want a ticket to the World Cup final. In a peer network, someone will know the right person.

A CEO may hold the job for eight years and then have to ask what comes next. The more people you know outside your industry, the more likely you are to discover interesting opportunities—another CEO role, a board position, or work with private equity. The people who decide who joins supervisory boards are all in these networks.

I once had a member who became CEO of one of Switzerland’s largest insurance companies. After a year he told me he was too busy and had to leave the Roundtable. Four years later he was no longer CEO and came back asking whether I could introduce him to people for board mandates. I said I would be happy to help, but asked why he had left. The people I could introduce were exactly those he would have come to know personally over five years—through weekends and dinners. He could not explain his decision. That kind of short-sightedness continues to astonish me.

I am a night owl, a habit from my time as a practicing lawyer, when I regularly worked until midnight. In the morning I try to exercise early and stay fit. Sustainable high performance requires enough sleep and regular exercise. Otherwise I have no fixed routine; every day is different. What is consistent is that I meet new, interesting people—sometimes every day, certainly every week. It is also a snowball effect: the more interesting people you know, the more interesting people you are introduced to.

Most of my time now goes into meeting interesting people and connecting them with one another. If someone has a question or a need that could be addressed by another relevant person in one of my networks, I enjoy making that connection. That is what I do day in and day out.

As a young lawyer, I definitely had no master plan. I never imagined founding or co-founding a private members’ club in the heart of Zurich, or bringing 500 of Europe’s most relevant business leaders into one network and sitting at a table with Nobel laureates. There was no master plan. I was curious about people, kept putting myself forward, and sensed opportunities. When I sensed one, I took it. I almost never say no; I say yes a great deal. One thing led to another. That is what I would pass on to anyone: if the environment and the people are right, say yes and see where it leads.

Thank you, Franz. It was a pleasure.