Yves Daccord is a renowned humanitarian leader, international strategist, influencer and changemaker. Yves is currently leading the first-ever Harvard’s Pop-Up Institute – the Edgelands Institute - to imagine the terms of new social contracts that work for cities and people in the age of pandemics and digital surveillance. Yves chairs as well the #Principles4Peace initiative to reshape peace processes around the world, the Board of the leading Swiss newspaper LeTemps, the Board of International Human Rights Film Festival of Geneva and the Board of Our Common Home, an organization that promotes civic participation to build solutions to our changing natural environment. Yves is member of the Board of Trustees of ODI a leading global affairs think tank working to inspire people to act on injustice and inequality, and of the board of Trial International working towards fighting impunity for international crimes and supporting victims in their quest for justice.
From 2010 – March 2020 Yves was Director-General of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), a global humanitarian organization employing 20,000 staff. A former journalist, TV producer and international relations expert, his ICRC career spanned more than two decades in a variety of posts and challenging contexts – including Israel and the Occupied Territories, Sudan, Yemen, Chechnya and Georgia. Yves holds a degree in political science and an honorary doctorate in social sciences from the University of St. Gallen, awarded in 2017.
