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Lesley Spiegel becomes first Managing Director of the DIZH

Lesley Spiegel will commence her work as the first Managing Director of the Digitisation Initiative of the Zurich universities (DIZH) on 20 April, 2020. She will develop the DIZH office and support the activities of the initiative in all areas.

Lesley Spiegel studied History at the University of Haifa and gained a Master of Science in Management at the Technion (Israel Institute of Technology). The 46-year-old was born in Zurich and was Director of the Technopark Zurich Foundation from 2004-2009. Following a period of self-employment as a management consultant for start-ups and as a lecturer at ETH Zurich, Lesley Spiegel was Head of the Institute of Design Research at the Zurich University of the Arts from 2015 to 2019. She is also an Innosuisse expert and a member of the advisory boards of funding agencies.

“With Lesley Spiegel, we have acquired a Managing Director with proven management expertise who also has a very good understanding of the research and teaching at universities,” says Professor Jean-Marc Piveteau, President of the ZHAW and Chairman of the DIZH steering committee. “With her experience and wide knowledge of innovation, she will contribute to the success of the DIZH.”

Zurich’s Cantonal Parliament took the unanimous decision to support the DIZH with CHF 108 million on 20 January, 2020. The four partner universities – the University of Zurich (UZH), the Zurich University of Applied Sciences (ZHAW), the Zurich University of the Arts (ZHdK) and the Zurich University of Teacher Education (PHZH) – are also making their own contributions, totalling more than CHF 190 million for 2020-2029. The goal of the DIZH is to promote the cooperation between Zurich’s universities in the field of digitisation and thus to strengthen the City of Zurich as a research and business location. Within the framework of the DIZH, an innovation programme, a research cluster, and a programme aimed at promoting education are being developed.

With the appointment of Lesley Spiegel as Managing Director and with the expiry of the referendum deadline, the DIZH can now start operating! The Management Board, in which digitisation specialists from all of the partner universities are represented, is responsible for the supervision of the office. The personnel will formally be employed by the UZH.