Alfred Meier was born on 12 April 1937 in Winterthur.
After attending the Winterthur grammar school, Meier began his studies at HSG in 1956, majoring in commodity trading. Following his graduation in 1960, he attended doctoral seminars for a year. In 1961 Meier worked part-time as a management secretary at Bank Hofmann AG whilst working on his dissertation. In the same year he married Nanette Ganzoni, with whom he has four children.
In 1964 Alfred Meier published his dissertation entitled Die Kommerzialisierung der Kultur (The commercialisation of culture). He then worked for a year in the management consulting department of the Institute of Business Administration at HSG. He then served as scientific secretary to the Federal Commission for the Study of Problems of Long-Term Financial Planning.
In 1966 Meier studied finance for two semesters at Harvard University and the following year he spent a summer at Stanford University to further his education in monetary theory.
In 1968 Meier became a full-time lecturer in economics. In 1971 he was promoted to Director of the Institute for Financial Economics and published his post-doctoral thesis under the title Systematische staatliche Wirtschaftspolitik. Ansätze zu einer Konzeption (Systematic state economic policy. Approaches to a conception).
In 1972 Alfred Meier was appointed Associate Professor of Economics with special emphasis on finance, followed by his appointment as a Full Professor in 1974.
Between 1975 and 1977, Meier served as Vice-President before being elected to be the President of HSG in 1978. He held this office for two terms until 1982. Withing HSG he was regarded as an integration figure internally whilst outside the school he had a reputation of an competent and pragmatic scientist. Under his leadership, the Presindet’s Board became a collegial body and the Senate Committee a centre of leadership. Meier proved in his various roles as a witty orator, a balladeer and also a party host who could hold his own drink, that for him being a president meant not only working hard but having fun as well.
In 1992, Alfred Meier became a member of the Board of Directors of Creditanstalt (CA) St. Gallen and between 1996 and 2005 he was the board’s charman. He was also Chairman of the Federal Commission for Economic Affairs in 1997. In addition to his numerous academic publications, Meier regularly published articles and columns on various economic topics in the St.Galler Tagblatt (e.g. "Zwischensaldo").
In 1992 Meier told the student magazine prisma that he enjoyed reading German and English literature. His hobbies also include hiking, travelling and collecting small elephant figurines.
Alfred Meier retired in 2000.
He passed away on 4 December 2022.
1979: Institute for Accounting and Controlling (IRC-HSG), today Institute for Accounting, Controlling and Auditing (ACA-HSG).
1981: Institute for Corporate Management (IfU-HSG), today Institute for Operations Research and Computational Finance (ior/cf-HSG)
1981: Research Foundation for Law (FR-HSG)