“We Intend to Expand Further in Zurich”

Zurich is Google’s most important development center outside the USA. What does Google find so attractive about the City on the Limmat?

Switzerland stands for diversity, innovation, and quality. The very good administration and infrastructure here are further success factors. Google’s Swiss center has maintained its international competitiveness for years – with key services such as Google Search, Google Maps, Google Assistant, or YouTube. Zurich is Google’s largest research and development center outside the USA, employing almost 2,500 staff. We have now rented new offices in Zurich and intend to expand further in the coming years. Google’s services “made in Switzerland” are being developed for the whole world. For this to be successful, an in-depth knowledge of languages and cultures are essential. With some 85 different nationalities, our workforce in Zurich covers this diversity. In addition, numerous employees come from Zurich’s outstanding technological colleges and universities, with which we collaborate very closely in the field of research. For Google, this is also an important argument in favor of Zurich.

How do you, as country manager of Google, promote innovation and start-ups in Zurich and Switzerland?

We see ourselves as part of Swiss society and the Swiss economy. For this reason, we are very actively involved in a wide variety of projects at a local level – in particular for start-ups, among other things as a founder member of the “digitalswitzerland” initiative, or within the framework of the partnership between Google for Entrepreneurs and the Impact Hub Zurich. Swiss start-ups have global access to the Google for Entrepreneurs programs and events, such as the Silicon Valley boot camps or the investor pitches, “Google Demo Days”. The start-up company, Kenzen, which is affiliated with the Impact Hub, is one of the success stories resulting from our involvement.