Swiss Red Cross: Barbara Schmid-Federer becomes President

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the essentials in brief

• Barbara Schmid-Federer becomes the new President of the Swiss Red Cross.
• She replaces Thomas Heiniger at the helm of the organization.
• Schmid-Federer would like to focus on dealing with the climate crisis, among other things.

Barbara Schmid-Federer is the new President of the Swiss Red Cross (SRK). She succeeds Thomas Heiniger, who resigned in September last year because of “different ideas about how to proceed”. Heiniger only stayed in office for about a year.

At the time of his resignation, it was said that within the SRC there were different views on the centralist versus federalist approach. Since then the presidency has been vacant. The interim management was held by a team of three from the Red Cross Council.

In March, the Red Cross Council then nominated former Zurich CVP national councilor Schmid-Federer as president. The delegates unanimously voted them into office on Saturday, as the SRK announced. She is also available for re-election after the end of the ordinary term of office 2019-2023.

Schmid-Federer was already Vice-President and President of the SRC Canton of Zurich. She is firmly rooted in the organization. As President, she will work to alleviate the suffering caused by crises, conflicts, hunger and poverty and to help shape the handling of the consequences of climate change in the interests of the most vulnerable, she is quoted in the statement as saying.