
Tom Kleiber, a 53 year old ICT veteran, has been named today to take over as Managing Director of SWITCH, which among other roles manages Switzerland’s ccTLD .ch and Liechtenstein’s .li. Kleiber will succeed Andreas Dudler who is stepping down after nine years as Managing Director and retiring at the end of 2021. Kleiber will take up his new post on 1 January 2021.
The SWITCH Foundation was founded in 1987 under private law by the Swiss Confederation and the eight university cantons that existed at the time with an “objective to create, promote and offer the necessary basis for the effective use of modern methods of telecomputing in teaching and research in Switzerland, to be involved in and to support such methods. It is a non-profit foundation that does not pursue commercial aims.”
SWITCH was delegated the role of managing the Swiss country code top-level domain (ccTLD) in 2003 and in 2016 won a competitive tender process to manage .ch from 2017 for five years, which can be extended for a further five years by mutual consent. SWITCH also manages Liechtenstein’s ccTLD .li.

Kleiber has devoted himself to the ICT industry and the education community for 30 years, according to an announcement from SWITCH. As an entrepreneur and digitalisation consultant, he is currently the CEO and founding member of Zetamind AG, where he advocates for responsible data handling. Prior to this, he held various leadership positions in large corporations such as Siemens, Alcatel and, most recently, as a member of the Management Board of Microsoft Switzerland. He managed the ICT service provider connectis AG and its 350 employees in his role as CEO.
Tom Kleiber holds diplomas in Electrical Engineering (University of Applied Sciences) and Industrial Engineering. The 53-year-old also has a Master’s degree in Applied Ethics from the University of Zurich.
“I am extremely pleased to have the opportunity to work with the dedicated team at SWITCH to support the digitalisation of the Swiss education community with innovative solutions,” said Kleiber on his new role in the announcement.
The SWITCH Foundation Council elected Tom Kleiber as Andreas Dudler’s successor at its meeting on 4 June 2020.
“Tom Kleiber brings with him not only profound knowledge of the ICT and educational scenes in Switzerland, but also an extensive network and a great deal of experience as an entrepreneur,” said Chairman of the Foundation Council Peter Kofmel.
Dudler will be retiring at the end of 2021. He has played a significant role in shaping the SWITCH foundation over the past nine years as Managing Director and before that as Chairman of the Foundation Council. Under his leadership, SWITCH has not only introduced innovations such as cloud-based services, lifelong university IDs, and centralised software procurement for universities, but has also greatly expanded network and security services and secured the future of the ‘.ch’ registry.
“I would like to sincerely thank Andreas for his hard work and dedication on behalf of the foundation and its beneficiaries, and I wish him all the best for his well-deserved retirement,” said Kofmel.