Martin Godel

About

Swiss citizen Martin Godel, age 47, started with a certified federal apprenticeship at a municipal administration. Later, he graduated from the University of Geneva at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva, Switzerland and received his Master Degree of Law and Diplomacy at the Fletcher School administered by Tufts University and Harvard University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. The Graduate Institute awarded Godel with the MacJannet Scholarship and the Fletcher School awarded the Robert B. Stewart Prize for highest academic achievement.
He held various positions in the service of the Swiss Confederation, including the Swiss delegate for horizontal GATS-negotiations during the first part of the Doha Round. He was a member of the Swiss Delegation to the OECD Trade Committee and also participated and led several multilateral and bilateral trade negotiations (WTO and Free Trade Agreements).
Godel assumed the responsibility as Head of the Swiss Business Hub Japan at the Embassy of Switzerland in Tokyo supporting Swiss and Japanese companies in their strategic decision-making particularly in the field of business development (export and investment).
After four years in Japan, Godel returned to the State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and assumed the responsibility for Switzerland's Small and Medium Size Enterprise Policy including the reduction of regulatory costs for SME's and ease of access to financing. He was in charge of the reform of the federal tax holiday regime on regional aid and led the respective negotiations with the European Commission and the OECD Forum on Harmful Tax Practices (FHTP). Since 2017 Martin Godel leads the national single platform for Government-to-Business transactions, EasyGov.swiss.
In 2020 he was responsible for the implementation of Federal Covid-19-Liquidity program providing more than 137’000 companies with 17 billion Swiss Franc within a few weeks.
He his Vice-President of the OECD Committee on Industry, Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) and Chairman of the OECD Working Party on SME‘s and Entrepreneurship (WPSMEE).
Martin Godel is Deputy Head of the Promotion Activities Directorate in SECO including Regional Policy, Tourism Policy, Foreign Economic Promotion Policy and SME Policy. 
He is married to Claire-Lise Godel Baldwin and they have three children living in Berne, Switzerland.
Non-professional activities include his engagement for the local church. Martin Godel is Vice-President of the Regional Church Parliament of the Catholic Church in Berne overseeing the public funds, infrastructure projects and social support
programs.