VentranetAbout Serge
Serge Bavaud is Director of the Federal Intelligence Service (FIS), Switzerland's intelligence service. The Federal Council appointed him in September 2025, and he took office on 1 November 2025, succeeding Christian Dussey.
His career has been in security policy and crisis management. He joined the Federal Department of Defence in 1999 and held several posts there, among them political adviser in the Security Policy Directorate. From 2008 to 2012 he was diplomatic counsellor at Switzerland's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, then deputy head of arms control and disarmament at the defence department until 2014. He moved to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, where he was deputy director of the Crisis Management Centre from 2014 and its director, with the rank of ambassador, from 2022 to 2025. In June 2025 he became Swiss ambassador to Algeria.
Bavaud holds a master's degree in history and economics from the University of Fribourg, a diploma in business administration from HEC Geneva and a leadership diploma from Harvard Kennedy School. He is a colonel in the Swiss Armed Forces.
