Bernhard Heusler – Leadership is based on authenticity and trust

For Bernhard Heusler, the performance of the team determines the quality of leadership. Whether in sport or in business, whether as club president or top manager – leaders are always at the service of the whole. If the team wins, the leadership has done everything right, otherwise it is questioned.

Bernhard Heusler knows the business: as club president of FC Basel, he helped shape the club’s most successful period. As a lawyer for many years and now a partner in his own consulting firm, he lives his principles in practice every day. And recognises clear parallels between the business world and sport.

For him, authenticity and trust shape the team’s results. When leaders make decisions credibly, the team can accept and implement them. “Only where there is an atmosphere of mutual trust, i.e. where mistakes are also allowed, do people take risks for the whole.” Business can learn that from football.

Lecture topics by Bernhard Heusler

• A team wins. Always.
• The formula for success: competence and passion
• Intercultural Management – Leading Multinational Teams
• Sport & Business – Learning and profiting from each other
• Leadership & Motivation – Successfully meeting the challenges of the future

Bernhard Heusler first studied law at the Universities of Basel and Davis (California). After completing his doctorate in constitutional law, he worked as a business lawyer first in New York (1995) and then in Basel at Wenger Plattner. From August 2014 until autumn 2017, he was counsel at the Basel office of the law firm Walder Wyss AG.

Since 2003, Bernhard Heusler has increasingly devoted himself to FC Basel 1893. Initially brought in as a legal advisor to the board of directors, he was elected vice-president of the football club in 2006 and took over responsibility for operations as delegate of the board of directors in 2009. Under his operational leadership, FC Basel 1893 has won the Swiss championship eight times in a row, reached the semi-finals and quarter-finals of the UEFA Europa League and qualified for the UEFA Champions League six times. In the course of assuming operational management responsibility, Bernhard Heusler became majority shareholder at FC Basel Holding AG.

In 2012, Bernhard Heusler was elected president of FC Basel 1893 (club) and FC Basel 1893 AG (public limited company). Under his responsibility, FC Basel increased its turnover from around EUR 40 million (2009) to EUR 100-130 million (2015/2016). In summer 2017, Bernhard Heusler – and with him the entire management level – stepped down and transferred the shares in FC Basel Holding AG to a new owner. Bernhard Heusler became the second honorary president in the club’s history to date.

In the field of football, Bernhard Heusler took on the following responsibilities:

• Representative of the Swiss Football League on the Central Board of the Swiss Football Association;
• Member of the Swiss Football League Committee (2010-2017).
• Club representative in the European Club Association (2010-2017)
• Swiss representative on the UEFA Club Competition Committee (2014-2018); and
• Arbitrator at the International Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS/TAS) in Lausanne.

Since February 2018, Bernhard Heusler has been active as an advisor to the governing bodies of Legia Warsaw, among others.

In autumn 2018, Bernhard Heusler and his consulting firm were commissioned by the Swiss Football Association (SFA) to conduct an analysis of the organisation, structure and processes surrounding the Swiss national team in the aftermath of the 2018 World Cup.

As recognition of his activities and achievements with FC Basel 1893, Bernhard Heusler has been awarded the following honours:

• Basel Star (2013), awarded by the “Sternen Komitee” for outstanding services to the city of Basel,
• “Award for outstanding Leadership and Teamwork” (2016), awarded by the “World Forum for Ethics in Sport and Business” at the 2nd World Summit on Ethics and Leadership in Sports in recognition of the values-based leadership and teamwork at FC Basel 1893;
• “Ehrenenspalebärglemer” (2016), awarded by the “Sperberkollegium” for outstanding services to the city of Basel (since 1976);
• Honorary President of FC Basel 1893 (2017);
• Honorary member of the Swiss Football League (2017)

In addition to his activities in the field of (football) sports, Bernhard Heusler accompanies a number of board of directors mandates in Switzerland, including at the start-up company Picstars, an online platform for sports sponsorship and support for athletes; he has also served as Co-President of the Swiss Sports Aid Foundation since May 2018 and has been co-owner and honorary board member of Sm’Aesch Pfeffingen AG, a Swiss women’s volleyball team (runner-up in 2017), since summer 2017.

Bernhard Heusler is President of the “Foundation for Sick Children in Basel”. He regularly appears as a speaker on the subject of corporate and team leadership at business events, management seminars and academic courses. Bernhard Heusler is married and father of two children.