Esther Widmer has been Managing Director of the Swiss Finance Council since 1 January 2021. She was previously the Financial Services Attachée at the Mission of Switzerland to the European Union since 2016. In this capacity, she has been responsible for monitoring and analysing the developments of EU financial market policy and regulation with regard to the possible impact on Switzerland and related advocacy work. Before joining the Mission she was Deputy Head of Regulation at FINMA, the Swiss Financial Market Supervisory Authority. In this role, she was working on various national financial market regulation projects and also Head of FINMA’s EU desk. During her time at FINMA she was seconded to the European Commission as a National Expert for five months in 2015 where she was able to work on EU financial services regulation on the side of the EU Institutions. Esther Widmer had joined FINMA after several years of experience as an Attorney specialised in Banking and Finance. She is admitted to the bar in Switzerland and holds a PhD in law.
