Markus Baumgartner becomes president of the Swiss Crisis Communicators
Markus Baumgartner becomes the new President and Olivier Laube the new Board member of the Swiss Association for Crisis Communication VKK. They were unanimously elected at the 2022 Annual General Meeting to succeed Boris Rauscher and Bettina Freihofer, who are stepping down.
"I'm looking forward to steering the fortunes of the association together with the Board and revitalizing it with new offers," explained Markus Baumgartner after his election. Baumgartner said at the meeting that he wanted to strengthen the exchange between members in future with a new regulars' table and thus discuss current incidents more quickly.
The 56-year-old has more than 30 years of experience as a journalist and communications consultant. He has managed the B-public agency in Zug, Zurich and Geneva since 2012. He is also a sparring partner for managers and companies. As a Certified Consultant in Strategic Communications, he has broad experience in all areas of communication.
Olivier Laube, 55, is an experienced and proven crisis communicator and works as Head of Cyber Crisis Response Training at Zwygart Leadership. Laube also works as a media trainer for companies through his company Laube Media. He previously worked as Head of Communications at McDonalds Switzerland and as a TV producer for Immo-TV and TeleZüri. Laube would like to make a strong contribution to the VKK in the transfer of knowledge to the outside world.
New specialist course with universitye
Together with Professor Norbert Winistörfer from the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland FHNW in Aarau, the VKK is developing a specialist course on "Crisis Management & Communication".
In addition to continuous education and training, forward thinking, planning and action are crucial in crisis communication, explains Olivier Laube: "For crisis communication to work, you have to be prepared and armed as a company, person or organization". This will also affect Swiss SMEs in the future, especially when it comes to cyber attacks, which are threatening our society today.
