Alain Chuard is a Swiss entrepreneur and former professional

snowboarder Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic ...

living in

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

. He is best known as the founder and

Chief product officer A chief product officer (CPO), sometimes known as head of product or VP of product, is a corporate title referring to an executive responsible for various product-related activities in an organization. The CPO is to the business's product what th ...

Wildfire Interactive Wildfire Interactive Inc, or Wildfire, was a startup software company based in Redwood City that developed a social marketing application that enabled businesses to create, optimize and measure their presence on social networks such as Facebook, ...

, the social media marketing technology company acquired by

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

in July 2012.

Early life and education

Chuard was born in

Bern Bern (), or Berne (), ; ; ; . is the ''de facto'' Capital city, capital of Switzerland, referred to as the "federal city".; ; ; . According to the Swiss constitution, the Swiss Confederation intentionally has no "capital", but Bern has gov ...

and raised in the Swiss town of

Bolligen Bolligen is a municipality in the Bern-Mittelland administrative district of the canton of Bern, Switzerland. In the historical center is a twelfth-century church, with a benefice barn and parsonage from the 16th century. History Bolligen is fir ...

. His father and uncle were both entrepreneurs. Chuard competed on the snowboard World-Cup Pro Tour while in high school. From 1994-96, he was ranked in the top 4 snowboarders in Switzerland. Chuard was sponsored by

Burton Snowboards Burton Snowboards is a privately-owned snowboard manufacturing company that was founded by Jake Burton Carpenter in 1977. The company specializes in products aimed at snowboarders, such as snowboards, bindings, boots, outerwear, and accessor ...

and has appeared in various snowboarding publications including the cover of ''

Transworld Snowboarding ''Transworld Snowboarding'' was an American magazine and website dedicated to snowboarding culture. When it closed, the magazine had most recently been published four times a year (for many years, ''Transworld Snowboarding'' published 10 issue ...

''. Chuard left Switzerland at the age of 20 after completing his high school

matura or its translated terms (''mature'', ''matur'', , , , , ', ) is a Latin name for the secondary school exit exam or "maturity diploma" in various European countries, including Albania, Austria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech ...

. Chuard studied mathematics and economics at

Macalester College Macalester College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. Founded in 1874, Macalester is exclusively an undergraduate institution with an enrollment of 2,142 students in the fall of 2023. The college ha ...

. He has an

MBA A Master of Business Administration (MBA) is a professional degree focused on business administration. The core courses in an MBA program cover various areas of business administration; elective courses may allow further study in a particular a ...

from

Stanford Graduate School of Business The Stanford Graduate School of Business is the Postgraduate education, graduate business school of Stanford University, a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. For several years it has been the most selective ...

Career

After graduating from Macalester College, he spent two years working as a financial analyst for

Salomon Smith Barney Salomon Brothers, Inc., was an American multinational bulge bracket investment bank headquartered in New York City. It was one of the five largest investment banking enterprises in the United States and a very profitable firm on Wall Street du ...

in New York City. He then left Wall Street to start the adventure travel company, Access Trips, in 2001. While getting his MBA, he also built an online booking and CRM software called IncFuel Corp. In the summer of 2007, he was an

Entrepreneur in Residence An entrepreneur in residence, or executive in residence (EIR), is a position commonly held by successful entrepreneurs in venture capital firms, private equity firms, startup accelerators, law firms or business schools. Typically, the EIR has le ...

Highland Capital Partners Highland Capital Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices in Boston, Silicon Valley, and San Francisco. Highland has raised over $4 billion in committed capital and invested in more than 280 companies, with 47 IPOs and 134 acqui ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. In 2008, Chuard developed the software Promotion Builder as an online marketing tool used for promoting Access Trips through social media. Promotion Builder became Wildfire Interactive and within four years, Wildfire grew to a company with 400 employees. In 2010, Chuard sold Access Trips in order to focus on Wildfire. In July 2012, Google purchased Wildfire for a reported $450 million. Following Wildfire's incorporation, Chuard became Head of Product of Google My Business until his and Ransom's departure in 2015. He is a Henry Crown Fellow of the

Aspen Institute The Aspen Institute is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1949 as the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies. It is headquartered in Washington, D.C., but also has a campus in Aspen, Colorado, its original home. Its stated miss ...

. In 2016, Chuard, together with Christian Hirsig as host, set up the non-profit organization Swisspreneur, Switzerland’s biggest business podcast publisher, which encourages entrepreneurship in Switzerland through interviews with Swiss start-up founders. In August 2020, it was reported that the self−funded

edtech Educational technology (commonly abbreviated as edutech, or edtech) is the combined use of computer hardware, software, and educational theory and practice to facilitate learning and teaching. When referred to with its abbreviation, "EdTech", ...

startup Prisma, created by Chuard and his wife

Victoria Ransom Victoria Ransom is a serial entrepreneur from New Zealand. She has developed three companies including Wildfire Interactive, a social marketing SaaS company, where Ransom was chief executive officer until it was sold to Google in 2012. Ransom c ...

, would launch on 8 September 2020, for 40 U.S. students. In July 2021, Chuard was named as the Founder and CEO of Prisma.

Personal life

Chuard married

in March 2013 and is the father of three children. They met in December 1999 while studying at Macalester College. He speaks four languages and is one of the 300 wealthiest people in Switzerland.

Publications

*Podcast: ''The Founder’s Playbook'' – Swisspreneur EP #200 – November 11, 2021

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chuard, Alain Google employees Living people Macalester College alumni Stanford Graduate School of Business alumni Swiss businesspeople Year of birth missing (living people) People from Bern Henry Crown Fellows