Thomas Helbling (born 1961) is a Swiss lawyer. He held the office of Vice-Chancellor of Switzerland between 2008 and 2016, in charge of the Federal Council sector. After leaving office, he became the CEO of the Swiss Insurance Association (2017-2021). A native of

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 ...

, Thomas Helbling studied law at the

University of Bern The University of Bern (, , ) is a public university, public research university in the Switzerland, Swiss capital of Bern. It was founded in 1834. It is regulated and financed by the canton of Bern. It is a comprehensive university offering a br ...

and holds a

Master of Laws A Master of Laws (M.L. or LL.M.; Latin: ' or ') is a postgraduate academic degree, pursued by those either holding an undergraduate academic law degree, a professional law degree, or an undergraduate degree in another subject. In many jurisdi ...

from the

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in Post-nominal letters, post-nominals) is a collegiate university, federal Public university, public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The ...

. After spending his early career as a lawyer in Bern and London, he entered public service in 1998, when he became advisor to Federal Councillor Adolf Ogi and his successor, Samuel Schmid. In 2001, Helbling became the project manager for the joint Austrian-Swiss bid to host the

UEFA Euro 2008 The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2008 or simply Euro 2008, was the 13th UEFA European Championship, a quadrennial association football, football tournament contested by the member nations of UEFA ( ...

football championship, the second such multinational joint bid to succeed so far. After retiring from the organization committee in early 2003, Helbling joined private insurance company Swiss Life as head of public relations, and was appointed board member of the Swiss Football League, where he was in charge of games security and pushed for restrictive legislation against

hooliganism Hooliganism is disruptive or unlawful behavior such as rioting, bullying and vandalism, often in connection with crowds at sporting events. A hooligan is a person that engages in illicit reckless behaviors and is a public nuisance. Etymology ...

in anticipation of the Euro. Thomas Helbling was appointed Vice Chancellor of the Swiss Confederation in February 2008 and took office on 1 June 2008, successor to Corina Casanova who had been named Chancellor in the meantime. Although there had been several rows tied language representation in the Federal Chancellery during the appointment of his predecessors - Swiss French politicians having complained that the chancellery was in purely Swiss-German hands after the nomination of both Corina Casanova and Oswald Sigg. Swiss-German Helbling's appointment, raised no such issues. In his role, Thomas Helbling oversaw the Federal Council sector of the Swiss Chancellery, which looks after planning and managing the Federal Council's meetings, the Legal Section, the Official Publications Center and the Central Language Services.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Helbling, Thomas 1961 births Alumni of the University of London Living people 20th-century Swiss lawyers Swiss politicians