Curriculum vitae: Frédéric Riehl
Deputy Director
Federal Office for Communications
Switzerland
Frédéric Riehl (Swiss citizen) was born on 17 March 1952 in Paris. After obtaining a degree in
business science at the University of Geneva in 1972, he worked for two years at the head office of the
Union Bank of Switzerland in Zurich. He then studied law in Geneva and attained his lawyer’s
credentials before joining The Ministry of Transport, Communications and Energy. From 1979 to 1984
he participated in work on the Swiss global transport concept.
From 1984 to 1992, Mr. Riehl was engaged in the implementation of the first phase of the liberalisation
of broadcasting in Switzerland. He represented his country on various international bodies concerned
with the media (the Council of Europe, audio-visual Eureka, …).
When the Federal Office for Communications (OFCOM) was established in Bienne in 1992, Mr. Riehl,
a member of the administration, was entrusted with responsibility for international affairs for
Switzerland in the telecommunications and audio-visual sector. In this capacity, he was called upon to
represent Switzerland in numerous international organisations such as the ITU (International
Telecommunications Union), Eutelsat, Intelsat, Inmarsat, the CEPT (the European Conference on Post
and Telecommunications), etc.
Since 1995, he has been the Chairman of the permanent Committee of the European Convention on
Transfrontier Television (Council of Europe) and since 1996 the Chairman of the ECTRA Committee
(European Committee on Telecommunications Regulatory Affairs).
From the end of 2002 until 2006, he headed the financial permanent committee of the ITU as well as
the CEPT Group in charge of the coordonation of European positions in the ITU (Council,
Plenipotentiary, etc.). He was chairman of the Council for the 2007 session with the title of Secretary of
State.
Through his functions, Mr. Riehl has acquired considerable international experience and as a result is
able to contribute his know-how to the convergence of telecommunications, audio-visual technology
and the information society.
Mr. Riehl speaks French, English, German and Italian.