Former Migros boss Herbert Bolliger died-an obituary

Few bosses shaped Migros as much as Herbert Bolliger. Now he died at the age of 71. Bolliger was not only a manager, but also a very family man – and with his down -to -earthness for many a role model.

When Herbert Bolliger received our newspaper for an interview at the end of 2017 to talk about his resignation, we noticed something. His office in the 19th floor of the Migros high-rise at Zurich Limmatplatz still looked bare at how a good twelve years earlier when we had met him for the inaugural interview. And in the first interview we already found: Bolliger had unchanged the furniture from his predecessor Anton Scherrer. When we asked Bolliger to it, he said: « I have not invested anything in my office, things have to last 50 years. »

Bolliger’s modesty was not a coquetry, it corresponded to its nature. He juggled a billions as a Migros boss, but remained on the ground himself. That also had to do with his parents’ house. His father worked as a butcher at the Bell Grand butcher. He fed a family of five in Wettingen AG. Herbert Bolliger moved to the University of Zurich as the oldest of the three children, where he studied business administration.

In 1983, at the age of 30, he hired Migros – as a controller. After a detour to Portland-Cement, he returned to Migros in 1987, where he should stay until retirement.

He climbed the career ladder step by step, and over the years his work remained free of scandals-which cannot be said of all Migros bosses. At the age of 40, Bolliger became the Migros Group’s computer science, shortly afterwards managing director of the Migros Aare cooperative and finally, with 52, head of the Migros Cooperative Association. Apart from company founder Gottlieb Duttweiler, in the history of Migros there was only one boss in office as a Bolliger.

Bolliger belonged to a manager generation that normally hardly took time for the family. For Bolliger, however, there was not only business. With his wife Beatrice, he had a daughter and a son. His daughter says on the phone that her father was always a family man. Bolliger hardly ever went alone on public occasions, but almost always accompanied by his wife Beatrice. Visiting premieres and other events was not a compulsory exercise for both, but they loved it, especially when it came to culture. As long as he was Migros boss, Bolliger once said that the cultural percentage will never be touched.

One of the last few times the Bolliger appeared in public, was the circus knee premiere two years ago. Herbert Bolliger was drawn by cancer therapy, he had no hair anymore and spoke openly about his illness during the break.

As dry as he seemed to many, he was so open and sometimes shameful: at a concert in the KKL Lucerne, he amazed the guests when he did not talk about the weather during the aperitif, but about his will. He just had it certified, he said; You shouldn’t wait too long. That was still before the cancer had grown on which he died on Thursday night.

In Bolliger’s term, the entry of the German Harddiscounter Lidl and Aldi in Switzerland fell. In 2009 our newspaper interviewed him, and the reactions on it were so violent that Bolliger called the editorial team and said: « But you got a lot of gas on the headline! » This was: « Migros boss: serious allegations against Aldi and Lidl ». In this respect, his statements were spectacular when it was an unwritten law in Swiss retail so far that Migros and Coop bosses never spoke about the competition. Other companies were referred to as “competitors”.

His statements became more pointed

In the interview, however, Bolliger called Ross and Reiter. He said: « The owners of Aldi and Lidl are getting richer and constantly pressing prices at the expense of the producers and employees. » That is « very bad ». In the short term, the price reductions for consumers are positive, but in the long term devastating: « Brutal price war destroys entire companies and existences. »

While Bolliger was still startled by the waves that made these quotations, he later enjoyed pointed outlooks. So he criticized the lengthy approval process for new shops and construction projects – and also shopping tourism. Bolliger even came up with the then Federal Councilor Johann Schneider-Ammann. When this understanding of shopping in border foreign countries showed, Bolliger said: “Our Minister of Economics only causes shaking my head. His statement is short -sighted. »