Infrastructure: management changes in French-speaking Switzerland

Jean-François Wavre, currently Head of the Environment and Engineering Structures Western Switzerland Business Unit, will leave Gruner in the middle of the year. He will be replaced by Alexandre Vela Giro, currently Head of the Railway Construction Department in the Transport Infrastructure Business Unit for Western Switzerland. Together with Emmanuel Everbecq, Gruner will continue to drive forward the development of the infrastructure marketshare in Western Switzerland.

Jean-François Wavre, Head of Business Unit Environment and Engineering Structures Western Switzerland is leaving the company at his own request as of June 30, 2023. We would like to thank Jean-François for his remarkable contribution to the development of Gruner’s infrastructure marketshare in Western Switzerland over the last eight years. We wish him all the best for the future.

He will be succeeded by Alexandre Vela Giro. Alexandre has been working for Gruner since 2017, most recently as Head of the Railway Construction department in the Transport Infrastructure Western Switzerland Business Unit. Alexandre studied civil engineering at the University Politécnica de Cataluna in Barcelona. After graduating, he worked for ten years as a project manager in two renowned engineering firms in Western Switzerland. In 2017, he started his career at Gruner and has since managed various interdisciplinary civil engineering projects, such as the modernization of the M2 and M3 metros at Lausanne station or the overall A5 renewal between La Neuveville and Biel.

We are extremely pleased to be able to fill this position internally. Alexandre has the necessary experience and technical expertise to ideally fill this key position. He is well known to our clients in Western Switzerland as well as to employees and is very well connected in the region. Since 2021, he has also gained valuable management experience as head of department. We congratulate him warmly on his promotion and wish him every success in his new role. 

With these new recruitments, we are strengthening infrastructure construction in Western Switzerland, which now comprises 80 employees at the Renens, Fribourg and Martigny sites. To enable further growth, we have therefore been operating in the regional market with an additional business unit since January 2023. The second business unit, Transport Infrastructure Western Switzerland, is managed by Emmanuel Everbecq. He has been with Gruner since 2010 and was Deputy Head of Business Unit under Jean-François Wavre before his promotion. Together, we have strong partners at our side to strengthen our market position in the French-speaking Switzerland.