Ms. Patricia Danzi

Patricia Danzi

Director General, Ambassador

Patricia Danzi studied in Lincoln (Nebraska) and Zurich, graduating with a master’s degree in geography, agricultural and environmental sciences. She then completed a postgraduate diploma in development cooperation at the University of Geneva. She began her career in international cooperation in 1996 at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), where she spent 25 years working on three continents. She served as a delegate in the Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo), Peru, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola. At ICRC headquarters in Geneva, she served as deputy head of operations for the Horn of Africa and as political adviser to the director of international operations. From November 2008 to April 2015, she headed the ICRC’s operations in the Americas, before becoming regional director for Africa. She became the first woman to serve as director general of the SDC on 1 May 2020.

Before embarking on a career in international cooperation, she moved from Zug, where she grew up as the eldest of six siblings, to Atlanta in 1996, where she represented Switzerland in the heptathlon at the Summer Olympics. She remains involved in Swiss sport and is a pro bono member of the central committee of Swiss Athletics. During her studies, she taught children with learning difficulties and, shortly after the election of President Nelson Mandela, she worked for a time as a teacher in a South African township. As the daughter of a Swiss-German secondary school teacher and a Nigerian diplomat, she was immersed in a multicultural environment from an early age. She speaks seven languages and has two adult sons.