Christian Haitz new Head of Legal at Gryphon Invest and Novo SWISS

Christian Haitz is the new head of legal and compliance at Gryphon Invest and NOVO Swiss, part of ACE SWISS Holding. With an abundance of in-house experience, he has previously provided legal services to several companies. Until now, Haitz was general counsel and compliance at Gategroup,  one of the global leaders in airline catering, retail-on-board and hospitality products and services headquartered in Zurich.

Haitz started his in-house career in 2003 at Pöyry, a Finnish company where he first assumed responsibility for the German market with 16 subsidiaries. Following his interest to work in a more international business, he gradually started working for the Zurich office after two years, leading to a complete relocation to Zurich in late 2007. After this role, from November 2008 to December 2011, he worked at Wild Group Management, a privately held food business, mainly with business-to-business operations, and additionally with the consumer brand Capri Sun. In April 2012 to December 2016 he took on the task to set up the legal function for JTI’s Swiss market and production entity, acting as the corporate secretary and member of the extended management team. During his time at JTI, he teamed up with the corporate affairs and communication department for advocating JTI’s Swiss position in the law-making process of the Swiss tobacco products law. He also worked at Heritage B as group legal & compliance officer and corporate secretary.

Since 2020 he is applying these skills in the ACC’s efforts to support the Swiss law-making initiative on extending the legal privilege of lawyers to in-house counsel.