James Breiding

Speaker at the St. Gallen Symposium

James Breiding is the co-founder of S8nations, a non-profit organization headquartered in Zurich that draws inspiration from his latest book, What Goliath Can Learn from David: Big Lessons from Small Nations. He is also the author of Swiss Made: The Untold Story Behind Switzerland’s Success and Too Small to Fail: How Some Small Nations Are Reshaping the World. Swiss Made has become a leading reference on Swiss achievements and innovation and is offered by seventy Swiss embassies as a diplomatic gift. Earlier in his career, he worked as a senior manager at Price Waterhouse Coopers, as a director at NM Rothschild & Sons, and as managing director at Templeton Investments. In 1999, he founded Naissance Capital, a Swiss boutique investment firm. Mr Breiding’s writing has appeared in The Economist, Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Neue Zürcher Zeitung, New York Times, Scientific American, The Straits Times, South China Morning Post, and Wall Street Journal. He has been a fellow at Harvard's Center for International Development and has lectured at leading universities including Harvard, Cambridge, Yale, Stanford, and ETH Zurich. Mr Breiding holds degrees from IMD Lausanne and the Harvard Kennedy School.