HELVET'S
INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL OF GOVERNANCE, GENEVA
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
EXECUTIVE LEADERSHIP
BERNARD BOËNE
Chancellor
B. Boëne, ISGG’s co-founder and chief academic officer, was educated in Paris (Sorbonne and Sciences Po). A professor of sociology specializing in military action, martial institutions and civil-military relations in comparative perspective, he spent most of his career at France’s military academy, Saint-Cyr, where he ended up as Director general for academic affairs and research (and as such helped engineer the school’s latest major reform of Army officer education and training). He was then appointed as a senior civil servant – recteur d’académie – in the French Ministry of Education. He taught at other times at the universities of Toulouse and Rennes, as well as at Sciences Po Paris.
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Prof. Boëne has served in elected senior positions in several international social science associations (Executive Council member, Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces & Society, Chicago ; vice-president of the International Sociological Association’s research committee on Armed Forces & Conflict Resolution ; chair of the European Research Group on the Military & Society). He was the founding editor-in-chief of Res Militaris, an online social science journal of military and security issues, and has contributed 10 books and over 90 articles or chapters in six languages to the social science literature in the military field.
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Dr. Boëne is a knight of the French National Order of Merit, a Commander of the Palmes Académiques, and a recipient of the Gold Medal for voluntary military service. He is a past laureate of the Morris Janowitz Career Achievement Award (Chicago, 2009).
RAGHID EL CHAMMAH
Initiator & Founder
Raghid El Chammah, initiator and founder of ISGG, was educated in Beirut (Grand Lycée Franco-Libanais de la Mission Laïque Française) and Paris (École des Cadres and Université Paris-II). He started out in life as a journalist at the age of 20. He became an entrepreneur three years later and has since then successively founded and managed a number of companies : Arabvision (an audiovisual production firm), Radio Orient (a bilingual station based in Paris, covering France, the French-speaking Swiss cantons and part of the Mediterranean Levant from Beirut), Euromed Group (the leading lobbying firm in the Euro-Mediterranean and Arab regions) and Africom (a mediation and arbitration company).
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Raghid has also held prominent international positions in the public sector, as Foreign Trade Advisor of France (2000-2007), and Ambassador to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations (2010-2019).
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Among the many distinctions he has received over the years are the Gold Medal of the City of Riyadh (1986), the Riad El Solh Prize for Independence (Lebanon, 1993), and the rank of High Officer of various national orders : those of Independence (Jordan, 1990), of the Republic (Tunisia, 1991), of the Green Crescent (1992) and the Star of Anjouan (Comoros, 1993). He was made a Knight of the National Order of Merit in France in 1994, and in Lebanon a Commander of the National Order of the Cedar in 2000, as well as a Grand Officer of the Order of Merit (Gold) in 2004.
Dr. WILFRIED VON BREDOW
Vice Chancellor
Prof. von Bredow graduated in political science, sociology and literary history from the Universities of Cologne and Bonn (where he earned his PhD in 1969). From 1972 to 2009 he was Professor of political science at the University of Marburg (where he was vice-president from 1975 to 1977). His work focuses on the military in democracy, German foreign and security policy, and the history of political ideas, topics on which he has published a long string of books and articles in German, English and French.
Aside from his main institutional affiliation, Wilfried taught and conducted research at various times as visiting professor or senior fellow : at St Antony’s College, Oxford (1977-1978), the University of Toronto (1987-1988, 2011-2012), the University of Saskatchewan (1994-1995), the Alfried Krupp Wissenschaftskolleg Greifswald (2008-2009), and the Institute of European Studies at Nanhua University, Chiayi, Taiwan. He was additionally on the faculty of the Geneva Graduate School of Governance from 2011 to 2017, a member of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation’s advisory board (1981-1986), and vice president (1997-1999), then president (1999-2001) of the German Canadian Studies Society (GKS).
Wilfried von Bredow received the Diefenbaker Award from the Canada Council (1994) and an honorary doctorate from Wifrid Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario (1999).
SAMI MOUBAYED
Middle East program director
Dr. Sami Moubayed, ISGG’s programme director for the Middle East, is a Syrian/British citizen who was educated in Beirut (American University) and at the University of Exeter, England (where he earned his PhD in Middle East Affairs). A historian, Sami founded the Damascus History Foundation, which he currently chairs. In that capacity, he published a number of books and articles in both English and Arabic, and edited the memoirs of several prominent Syrian figures.
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Dr. Moubayed has been active as a researcher in such scholarly settings as the American University of Beirut (2000-2001), the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2012-2014), Saint Andrews University (Scotland, 2006-present), the Universities of Kalamoon (Damascus, 2005-present) and Melbourne (2006-present), the Institut National d’Administration (Damascus, 2009-2011), the European Institute for Research on Mediterranean and Euro-Arab Cooperation (Brussels, 2014-2016), the Emir Abdulkader El Djezairi Foundation for Culture and Heritage (since 2015), and the Global Policy Studies Center in Washington, DC (2019-present).
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Sami has also been a columnist or analyst on Syrian and Lebanese affairs for The Economist (2000-2001), The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (2000-2003), Al-Ahram Weekly (2000-2005), Gulf News (Dubai, 2000-present), Asia Times Online (Hong Kong, 2005-2019), The Washington Post (2006-2009), The Huffington Post (2010-2014), Alsaffir newspaper (Lebanon, 2015-2017), Al-Sayyad Magazine (Lebanon, 2016-2017), and the European Eye on Radicalization (2019-present). As if this weren’t enough, he is additionally the founding editor of Forward Magazine (Damascus, 2006- 2012) and co-founder of the Dimashq Academic Journal (2021).
ALBERT DICHI
Audio-visual Production Manager
Albert Dichi, a French-Lebanese citizen, was educated in Paris where he ultimately earned a Master’s degree in communication from the École Supérieure de Commerce. His career started in multimedia production and post-production where he soon learned all the secrets of how to turn scenography into a success in a wide range of events: product launches, corporate meetings, annual conventions, celebrations, TV channel reports on agricultural fairs, exhibitions, stock exchange introductions, political forums and summits, institutional symposia and consumer events… For more than three decades, he has produced images and managed events in France, North Africa and the United States.
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His past accomplishments in that department of activity include presidential campaign events, high-profile symbolic commemorations (e.g., the 120th anniversary of the statue of Liberty in New York), as well as commercial and public relations occasions for a long list of business clients – mostly major international firms. As a result, he has made a resounding success of the audio-visual production company he founded : Cristal Events.
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Albert regards higher education as a new challenge. His role at ISGG is absolutely central: he is the person who makes the smooth functioning of its interactive online tuition system possible, and ensures the school’s effective (and attractive) delivery of course materials to our student audiences.
DANIEL COUTURE
Director of student affairs
Daniel Couture, a Swiss citizen, is ISGG’s programme director for student affairs. Educated in Lausanne, where he earned graduate degrees in economics and management from HEC and EHL, Daniel started his career in 2000-2006 with Dubai Holdings, in charge of mergers and acquisitions in the Emirati public sector. His next posting was in Hong Kong and Singapore, where with associates he created and for four years managed Centurion Global Capital Group, a hedge fund. Having returned to Switzerland, he was in charge of partnerships with third party managers (Sequoia Asset Management and Peak Partners). Since 2015, Mr. Couture has been active as an independent consultant on economic intelligence and banking intermediation with private and institutional clients. His long-standing interest in international higher education has recently led him to join ISGG.