René brings a strong strategic multi-functional approach rooted in operational experience, successfully demonstrated in the corporate, non-profit, private equity and family owned sectors, René is currently the Chief HR and Corporate Communications Officer for the Sunstar group, a global family-owned company founded in Japan 90 years ago and now headquartered in Switzerland. His prior positions were with Galderma, as HR Director Global R&D, where he built capability to launch the company’s first biologics and led the integration of R&D resources into a global organization. He was also Global Human Resources Director for Oxfam International, where he led the HR function across the confederation through the integration of all worldwide operations, building a very diverse multi-locational global HR team which implemented its first global HR strategy and was a thought leader in the INGO HR Director community, notably to improve safeguarding standards and practices globally. The first part of his career was with Procter & Gamble in various HR assignments in Belgium, Singapore, Switzerland, the UK and the USA. In the past 20 years, René has developed a passion and deep competence in the area of Diversity, Equity & Inclusion (DE&I), which he uses to transform organizational cultures to achieve higher mutual understanding, engagement, and business results. He believes that DE&I is a powerful organizational strategy to boost individual development and business results which is still misunderstood and therefore under-utilized, even by well-intended leaders. René role models how straight while males can empower women, LGBT+ staff, racial, ethnic and other minority groups to reach their full potential, thus benefitting everyone, including themselves. René holds a Master degree in Commercial and Industrial Sciences from the University of Geneva. He is a Swiss citizen, his wife is British and they have two daughters who live in the UK.