Dr Daniel Model isn’t your typical CEO. He’s the fourth generation of his family to run Model Group, a packaging company based in Switzerland. Daniel respects the history of the company while invigorating and growing it like no generation has done previously, and enjoys input from every employee who has an idea. And to top it off, he was also a top sportsman before he came into the family business, representing Switzerland at the World Curling Championships in the early 90s.
“I was a top curler. If you don’t know, curling is that strange game played on the ice, and my team was twice the Swiss champions,” Daniel says, and you can hear the passion for the sport in his voice. “We participated in the World Championships, but lost the semi-final. I only won one medal in the European Championships. It was 1991 when we won a bronze medal, and two months later I started working at Model Group. So I have this craziness of a sportsperson who is quite devoted to what he does. I would say passion is definitely an ingredient that you might find in Model Group, not only in myself as the CEO, but in the entire key management team.”
The company, Daniel says, as well as the Model family, has a long and proud history in Switzerland, and when he became CEO, he took the opportunities arising in Europe to expand the business and grow it exponentially.
“Model Group was founded in 1882 by my great-grandfather. If you look back over the 133 years, it did not have a constant growth, but if you look at the political landscape in the twentieth century in Europe, you can see why.”