Nadine Borter wants the importance of advertising and the work of agencies to be recognized appropriately.
At 30, Nadine Borter is already one of the top ten advertising agency owners in Switzerland: is she a career woman? She laughs at this question. Actually, women in management positions are "no longer an issue" for her generation - but of course people still talk about women in management positions. For Managing Partner Borter, "nothing really changed" when Bene Abegglen and Daniel Hartmann made her the offer to join Bern's largest advertising agency as a third partner. With her commitment and experience, Nadine Borter will lead Contexta into the third generation. She has accepted the challenge with great enthusiasm. Nadine Borter started her first job as a junior advertising assistant at Contexta in 1995 after graduating from commercial college. Since then, she has worked in all positions from planner to advertising assistant and head of marketing communication to consultant and consulting group leader. In 2002, she became a member of the management team and has been a business partner since January. "There have never been any major changes, but rather constant growth," she says in pleasant Valaisan German.
She grew up in "Natersch" - i.e. Naters - and then wanted to conquer the wide world and "purely by chance" got a taste of Contexta for a week in Bern. An alternative would have been to study business at university. But at the agency in the Mattenquartier, Borter quickly realized: "This is it! This is what I want to learn from scratch."
And Nadine Borter obviously does what she wants to do right. When, as a teenager in Valais, she had to decide between staying in the ski squad and her second hobby, swimming, the mountain climber opted for swimming, much to the surprise of those around her. And promptly became Swiss champion in the backstroke. She owes more than just her love of travel to her time in the national team. Her experience in top-class sport also helped her time and again in the areas of self-discipline and motivation.
The next decision was between sport and work, because she doesn't like to do anything "halfway". She opted for the profession, and swimming turned into diving during the vacations.
At Contexta, Nadine Borter has seen the agency grow from 20 people to 50, plus another 28 in the subsidiaries. She played a decisive role in shaping this growth phase and got to know the various work processes in an advertising agency from the ground up. For ten years, she was involved in various roles in the creation of campaigns for new clients - Basler Versicherungen, Swiss Lotto and the gold-winning Swisscom campaign.
And then, of course, the work for Appenzeller cheese. It is indeed true that Uwe Ochsenknecht was paid in cheese for his role in the commercial and still receives his regular deliveries today.
For Nadine Borter, advertising supports efforts to differentiate oneself in an increasingly competitive environment. On the other hand, the challenges for advertising agencies have increased in an increasingly complex market environment. Effective advertising requires a much higher level of strategic, conceptual and creative expertise than in the past. This is precisely where major investments are needed. Contexta will continue to attach great importance to this in the future.
"Developing" is a recurring theme in the interview with Nadine Borter. And what if you've already achieved everything by the time you're 30? She laughs. At her age, there is no problem behind such a question. "It's only really starting now."
The third partner at Bern's largest advertising agency: Nadine Borter. Photo: Iris Stutz
Andreas Panzeri

Caroline Thoma thinks the SonntagsZeitung is a good product. Thanks to fresh ideas from the publishing house, it could become even stronger. "I've tried it, but so far I haven't been able to find any appeal in this adventure." Caroline Thoma had more fun than diving with whitefish and perch when she spent several weeks diving in the Maldives with her husband and friends in February. She celebrated her 40th birthday on an uninhabited island. "Exotic fish in crystal-clear water, living on a safari boat, the clear starry sky, catching your own fish on the barbecue ..." Actually, she could have lived out this paradisiacal vacation for a whole year. When it became apparent that Caroline Thomas' job as publishing director at Annabelle would be abolished as part of a new structure, she took action. "I'm not the kind of person who waits until the end. I want to be able to decide for myself what I want to do," said the power woman, who had previously spent more than a dozen years in the media with a steady upward trajectory. The impending reorganization was therefore exactly the right time to take a sabbatical of her own choosing. "But it was clear that I didn't want to take a year-long vacation."
The publisher found the ideal substitute for simultaneously recharging her batteries and advancing her career at the University of St.Gallen. The Executive Master of Business Administration in Media and Communication course with Professor Glotz was a full-time course and was held in English with only four participants from Switzerland. Caroline Thoma was also attracted by two modules abroad. She was able to study media in Singapore for three weeks. During further project work in San Francisco, she also visited the ranch of film producer Georg Lucas. "It was interesting to discuss things with him," enthuses Thoma. However, it was not from Hollywood but from Werdstrasse that the call came, bringing the well-traveled diver back to Lake Zurich.
"I left it to my gut feeling at first: How does it affect me when I walk back through the door at the same company where I left a year ago?"
The comeback whetted her appetite. The offer to become the new publishing director of SonntagsZeitung ultimately attracted Caroline Thoma more than various other offers, including an extremely interesting position abroad.
"The newspaper is a good brand, has substance and offers potential for innovation." With the arrival of NZZ am Sonntag, the market has changed and become more exciting. It is a good time to take another look at the product and look for fresh ideas.
Caroline Thoma likes the fact that she has "a broad spectrum" of tasks in a publishing house. "I want to see the whole picture." For this reason, she wanted to switch from the agency side to the client side back in 1991 and started at Cash, which had just been founded. In the era of Ingrid Deltenre, Thoma spent six years at Wirtschaftsblatt, progressing from advertising assistant to deputy publishing director.
Caroline Thoma then moved to the company Swisscard AECS. She was Head of Loyalty and Reward at this joint venture between American Express and Credit Suisse. At the time, Thoma set up the "Point up" bonus program for the newly launched credit card brands. She is proud of the fact that her new customer magazine was realized with a genuine editorial concept and did not simply publicize services for customers.
In 1998, Annabelle received a call to work as publishing director. Tamedia manager Kurt W. Zimmermann had just bought Orella, which was to become Annabelle Création. Together with editor-in-chief Christa Löpfe, Thoma also introduced Annabelle Wohnen and Annabelle Business as part of the line extension strategy pursued at the time.
New forms of sponsorship made the Prix de Beauté, the biggest event for the beauty industry in Switzerland, possible. "At Annabelle, we have understood how to find and introduce new forms of cooperation." The new ideas on how to approach things also led to the "Annabelle Business" events. Up to 500 women have gathered at Kaufleuten, for example for an evening on the topic of networking.
Caroline Thoma completed her diploma as an advertising assistant during her time at the agency, followed later by marketing planner and advertising manager. The fact that she now wanted to work towards an MBA is first and foremost due to her "great curiosity". However, the recent entrant to the world of 40-year-olds also wants to prevent "the increasingly better educated young people" from snatching away her dream job one day. "I always want to have the opportunity to choose. If something interests me, I want to be able to apply for it." She has already acted on this principle when, after her first apprenticeship as a decorator, she realized that an additional CT could soon open more interesting doors for her.
Caroline Thoma has been married to a self-employed software engineer for ten years. She lives in the country "in a kind of shared flat" with her brother-in-law and sister-in-law and their two children, cats and rabbits. A couple of cows also gaze over the fence when it's time for an open-air movie with a projector and a big screen in the garden. Aviation films are also occasionally shown there, as Caroline Thoma wants to get her pilot's license "one day" in addition to her diving certificate.
Comeback at Tamedia with an MBA in her backpack: Caroline Thoma, Publishing Director at SonntagsZeitung.
Andreas Panzeri