Overview
Beth Krasna is a seasoned Swiss business executive who has been the head of 5 different companies and is an active board member whose independent director roles started when she was 24 years old. As a board member, she has been involved in multiple senior executive transitions and has coached and mentored CEO succession candidates, senior women leaders, and startup executives for the last 20 years. In her professional life, she has lived and worked in Switzerland, the US, the UK, and Thailand. She is fluent in English, French, and German.
Career History
Krasna served as interim President of the ETH Board from May 2019 to January 2020 and transitioned back to Vice President in February 2020. Krasna has been a member of the ETH Board since 2003 and transitioned to the Vice President role in 2008. She was appointed by the Swiss Federal Government in 2017 to represent Switzerland’s private sector on the UN Commission on the Status of Women to champion for women’s economic empowerment.
Additionally, she is currently Vice President of the Board of Directors of Symbiotics SA as well as President of the Board of Directors of Ethos Services SA and Xsensio SA. She is also the Vice President of the Foundation Board of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, where she will take over as president in July 2021, as well as a member of the Swiss Academy of Engineering Sciences. In addition to her directorships, she is an advisor to two startups.
Her former mandates include Board positions on government-owned companies (Swiss Federal Railways and Alcosuisse AG), publicly traded companies (Quadrant Holding, Cantonal Bank of Vaud), family-owned or employee owned companies (Raymond Weil SA , Bonnard & Gardel Holding) and a cooperative in the retail sector (COOP Group).
Krasna first entered the C-suite as a CFO, and shortly thereafter became CEO as part of an industrial turnaround. That experience led to 3 successive CEO roles in manufacturing, and a software startup. She held the position of Chief Executive Officer for Valtronic Holding SA, Sécheron SA, Symalit AG and Albert-Inc. SA. She was also the Managing Director at Valtronic Technologies (Suisse) SA and Industrial Management Company Ltd.
Personal
Krasna has a degree in chemical engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also passionate about ballet, and is the former Chairman at Fondation en Faveur de l’Art Chorégraphique / Prix de Lausanne.