Roger de Weck

He has been editor-in-chief of leading European newspapers, and has switched effortlessly between the German, French and Swiss press. Roger de Weck, the son of a banker, was born in 1953 in Fribourg and studied economics and social sciences in St. Gallen.

After working as an editor for business and politics for leading Swiss newspapers, and as a correspondent in Paris, de Weck joined the ZEIT-Verlag publishing house in 1989. He worked closely with the publisher of Die Zeit, Gerd Bucerius, and from 1990 to 1992 he was chief business editor there.

In 1992 de Weck returned to Switzerland, working as editor-in-chief of the Tages-Anzeiger for five years. In 1997 he became editor-in-chief of Die Zeit in Hamburg, working to modernize the weekly by creating a new layout and introducing the new supplement “Leben” (“Living”). These and similar innovations led to the recovery and increased circulation of the paper in the late 1990s.

De Weck has never shied away from conflict, and, in early 2001, when fundamental differences with the management of the Holtzbrinck Group which owns Die Zeit became apparent he resigned. Since 2002 de Weck has worked as a journalist for various print publications, he has presented the television show “Sternstunden” in 3sat/SF 1, is president of the Geneva Institut universitaire de hautes études internationales and teaches at the College of Europe in Bruges.