Marc Pictet, a newly appointed member of the Advisory Board of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management (Tsinghua SEM) and senior managing partner of Pictet Group, joined a "Board Members in Dialogue with Tsinghua Students" session and engaged in an in-depth exchange with participants from various programs of the Tsinghua SEM Executive Education Center (Tsinghua SEM EE) on October 14, 2026.
Marc Pictet delivers a speech to Tsinghua students.
Addressing the theme "Leadership Wisdom: Five Principles," Pictet – a ninth-generation member of the founding family – drew on the Pictet Group's 221-year evolution and management practices to share five guiding principles behind his decision-making, exploring how value-driven leadership builds organizational resilience across cycles. The event was moderated by He Ping, associate dean of Tsinghua SEM.
Marc Pictet in dialogue with Tsinghua students
Pictet opened his remarks with a core question: How does an institution with more than two centuries of history, where major decisions rest with only seven managing partners, continue to maintain its entrepreneurial spirit? He noted that every new managing partner at Pictet Group is expected to work over a long horizon. This extended tenure leads to the first principle: partnership. In his view, partnership means long-term mutual respect, trust and inclusion. The seven partners meet regularly each week to deliberate, with decisions made not by simple majority vote but through listening and discussing to reach consensus, with shared accountability for the outcome. "The test of partnership is whether people can disagree openly and still take responsibility together," he remarked. He said this principle extends to client relationships: Pictet Group selects its relationships carefully, aiming to build trust that spans generations while offering candid, independent advice.
Turning to the second principle, independence, Pictet explained that the group is wholly owned by its seven partners, with no external shareholders and no pressure to cater to the short-term quarterly performance pressures from capital markets. In his view, independence is also a habit of mind – one that sometimes requires the courage to say "no" to unreasonable requests or even to one's own convictions. Whether declining a major client's request to alter core investment processes or exercising restraint when markets blindly chase trending stocks, he said Pictet Group consistently acts from the standpoint of clients’ long-term interests and the group's overall resource allocation, maintaining prudence and self-discipline.
Elaborating on long-term thinking, his third principle, Pictet observed that a long-term perspective means resisting short-term temptations and even investing in a future whose benefits may only become visible after one has stepped down. By way of example, he noted that despite the rise of remote work and AI, the group recently inaugurated a large new eco-friendly campus in Geneva to bring employees together for face-to-face collaboration. He said decisions such as family succession and wealth distribution still depend on deep interpersonal trust. Similarly, Pictet Group has maintained a long-term commitment to Asia and the Chinese market: since entering Asia and establishing its Hong Kong office in the 1980s, the group has remained patient through lengthy cultivation periods. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it bucked the trend by opening a new office in Shanghai and has continued to ramp up its Asian market presence through internal five-year plans.
Pictet's fourth principle, responsibility, goes hand in hand with long-term thinking, requiring integrity toward clients, colleagues, future generations and society at large. More than a century ago, Pictet's great-grandfather introduced an employee profit-sharing scheme that allows colleagues to share in the firm's success – a pioneering practice that endures to this day. Furthermore, around the internet boom in 2000, Pictet Group farsightedly launched a water-themed equity fund, investing in companies addressing water challenges while seeking returns for its clients.
Finally, Pictet underscored the importance of entrepreneurial spirit: a mature institution needs both the discipline to protect what it has built and the boldness to venture into the unknown and take on risks. When developing new investment strategies, the partners often commit their own capital first rather than allowing clients to serve as the "first line of defense" against risk. Moreover, keeping the entrepreneurial spirit alive also means giving the younger generation more room to experiment and explore.
During the Q&A session, participants from various Tsinghua SEM EE programs raised questions on topics including family succession mechanisms, fixed tenures and long-termism, and the implementation of values. Pictet explained that group operates on a unique "buyout" model rather than hereditary succession: equity stakes are not passed down to children, but are gradually purchased by incoming partners over time. Family members must also start from the ground up and partners must recuse themselves from any selection process involving their immediate relatives. Meanwhile, the group ensures organizational vitality and the continuity of core values through mandatory retirement at a set age, regular rotation of partners, broad employee shareholding and profit-sharing mechanisms, and management leading by example. Concluding his remarks, Pictet encouraged the students that a true legacy does not begin with the ambition to create one, but with doing one's current work to the best of one's ability and laying a solid foundation for those who come next, giving them the freedom to go further.
Presentation of souvenirs
At the end of the event, He Ping and Li Jing, director of Tsinghua SEM EE, jointly presented Pictet with a brocade painting of Tsinghua's iconic old gate, symbolizing how traditional Chinese silk craftsmanship, like Swiss watchmaking, embodies a shared reverence for long-termism, artisanship and resilience.
Group photo
Source: Executive Education Center
Editor: Ren Zhongxi
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