Gunter Siddiqi was born in Fribourg and grew up in several countries. He graduated with a BSc in Earth Sciences from Imperial College (London, UK) and obtained his doctorate in geophysics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, USA).
He started his professional career working for Shell International Exploration and Production where Gunter trained as a production technologist. He was part of a Shell venture into geothermal energy that led him first to a posting in The Netherlands followed by a 4-year assignment to El Salvador where he worked as a geothermal energy project manager and business unit leader. He then moved to the USA and Canada where he worked on novel technologies for hydrocarbon production. His industry experience has been essential for developing a mindset of relentless innovation that drives strong value creation and competitiveness in the energy industry.
In 2008, Gunter Siddiqi changed gear and perspective, and joined the Swiss Federal Office of Energy. He was responsible for coordinating and executing the federally funded energy research and innovation programs for geothermal energy and carbon capture and storage (CCS). He actively worked with parliament to design, develop and implement policy instruments for market entry of geothermal energy technologies.
In his work for the federal administration, Gunter Siddiqi strongly emphasized the international dimension of energy research, innovation and support policies and actively represented Switzerland in various working groups and committees of the International Energy Agency and the European Union. He was thus able to leverage public funding to enable Switzerland’s research and innovation community to design and execute major international research and innovation initiatives.
Gunter Siddiqi retired in early 2021 and has since joined conim ag as a project manager. He is passionate about advising clients on energy research and innovation, and the development of energy policy instruments for technologies in support of Switzerland’s ambition to achieve climate neutrality.