Philipp Bertschi: "The MTEC greatly increased my knowledge of business management."

When you were a kid, what did you want to be?

When I younger, I wanted to be a train driver - as I guess a lot of kids do. I’ve always been fascinated by machinery and technology in general. As a kid I always wanted to know how things worked and often taught myself by taking apart a video recorder or similar item, for example. All my life I’ve been very curious about technology.

You started by studying electrical engineering at EPFL and then added an MAS in Management, Technology and Economics at ETH. Why did you choose to move to Zurich?

I never even thought of whether to study in Zurich, Berne or Lausanne. Because I was brought up multi-lingual, the course at the smaller ETH in Lausanne was my first choice because of the course program. Once I started working in telecommunications at diAx in Zurich (a precursor to Sunrise), it made sense to find a part-time post graduate course in the Zurich area. The MTEC greatly increased my knowledge and gave me a basic understanding of business management. I now get to put this to practical use in my work on the board of directors for an SME and as operational senior manager in larger companies.

You have almost 15 years of experience in the telecommunications sector. What does your job involve?

My career has taken me from technical engineer and project / program manager to senior manager. These days, my work involves lots (you could say too many) of meetings and e-mails. I try to interpret company objectives and visions for my area and communicate them to my staff. I regularly encounter words like prioritisation, cost control and focus. My main job is always to “enable” staff so they can have as great an impact as possible. I try to identify potential obstacles in advance and, where possible, provide work-arounds or alternative approaches.

What is the most exciting thing you’ve done to date?

Two exciting jobs come to mind.

Firstly, I was program manager at Sunrise when we were expanding the 3G network.

As a young engineer, I got to construct Sunrise's initial 3G network. I was responsible for collating the marketing requirements for rolling out the antenna sites and as a result requesting the annual program (in excess of 100 million Swiss francs) and the resultant sub-projects, projects such as Railway, Highways and Small Villages, from management. I also discussed and assigned the projects with the radio planners and then monitored progress of the roll-out, coverage and costs. Taking on such a huge responsibility was very exciting for me.

Secondly, the WIN10 roll-out at Helsana.

While managing a department, I was also appointed "Workplace Business Owner" and worked with an assigned project manager to successfully implement the "Win7 to Win10 Workplace" project to replace 3500 clients in just 6 months. More than 280 applications had to be tested and in some cases updated on the new operating system. All the client hardware also had to be renewed or replaced. Of course, this could only be achieved with the assistance of a good hardware partner. I found it a huge challenge to successfully manage such a critical project in so short a time frame and thereby ensure a stable IT client basis for the future.

The main way you get away from your day job is sport, but you also fly helicopters. What motivates you?

I’m someone who actively looks for challenges and loves them. At first, flying helicopters was a challenge for my technical and fine motor skills. Today, I see it as both a form of relaxation and a hobby. Interestingly, just as at work, it’s important for me to be able to test other angles and make new associations in my free time. So flying helicopters does have some similarities with my job. And the same applies to sport, where I am a group fitness trainer at ASVZ and instruct groups of up to 250 fitness enthusiasts to train in time to the music. Again, this challenge has its parallels with my day job - just with the addition of music.

Do you have any tips for today’s students?

Get some job experience as soon as you can, preferably while you are still at university! Studying will open a lot of doors but it rarely introduces you to daily life in a company. Work placements or classic student jobs are fantastic opportunities for establishing professional networks and getting initial experience. A healthy curiosity and a willingness to work in an area you are not studying are a great positive addition to your CV!