Starting her career working against organised crime, Florence Schurch was the first Swiss female special agent posted overseas with the federal police. Six months after 9/11, she was posted in the Swiss embassy in the US and later in Germany to work with the BKA. As a diplomat, Florence supported the ambassador on homeland security policies and diplomatic duties. In 2009, the Conseil d'Etat nominated her as the federal attaché to defend Geneva’s interests at the national level. One year after her nomination as the head of STSA, Florence has set up her team, successfully digested the campaign against the Responsible Business Initiative and sees the focus of the year 2021 on the fundamentals - for STSA’s 200 members but also for the industry as a whole.
After the Great Reset announced by the World Economic Forum, the return to fundamentals, proposed by the STSA. Can you explain this choice?
In 2020, significant frauds have shocked the trading industry and left banks and SMEs in difficulties. The impact on the industry’s image is huge. Our role is to support the traders to restore their image. We believe this can be achieved by going “Back to the Fundamentals”: it is time to learn from the past and work on the future.
Ok, let’s talk about the future, what are your priorities for 2021?
Communication, communication, communication… and transparency – our keywords to go forward. The industry’s reputation has suffered for too long due to a lack of public awareness. It is mostly our fault for not communicating enough. My goal – as Ramon Esteve, STSA President said – is “to make Switzerland as proud of its traders as it is of its cheesemakers.”
The role of transport is also key to our economy. Do you have some examples in shipping in this whole value chain?
Without maritime transportation moving 95% of goods, distribution wouldn’t be as efficient. This is thanks to the sailors and crew members continuing to deliver goods and commodities around the world, sometimes without returning home for months.
2020 has been a successful year for the big trading houses. Can it explain why the trading sector is demonised?
Traders are working in complex countries, where the law and governance are not always comparable to Switzerland. Switzerland doesn’t cultivate cocoa, coffee, rice or cotton. Thanks to traders, commodities from resource-rich countries, often marked by instability, are moved to resource-scarce countries. Trading companies are actively promoting responsibility through various projects. Some are now financed by the World Bank or developing banks that see traders as having an important role to play in local community development. There are many existing labels and standards which remain ignored by the public.
Does the expression “Back to Fundamentals” mean that you want to place the trader in the middle, via information-sharing among others?
This is exactly our aim. As you can see below, traders play a fundamental role in everyone’s life. Mistakes were made, but trading companies’ governance models changed to increase transparency and accountability.
