Riehl Frédéric
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.