About BST

More than 20 years alongside entrepreneurs

For more than two decades, BST Management Consulting has worked alongside entrepreneurs, management teams and shareholders.

During that time, we have supported several hundred companies and entrepreneurs, including assignments in Switzerland, France and Spain.

Our assignments are principally led by Virginie Verdon and Benedict Stalder.

The people

Benedict Stalder

Founder

Benedict Stalder is an entrepreneur, senior management advisor and Board Member with more than 40 years of experience building, managing, growing and turning around companies.

He started his entrepreneurial journey at the age of 21 and has since combined entrepreneurship with senior corporate leadership, board roles and hands-on management consulting. His experience ranges from startups and scale-ups to international technology and industrial companies, with a particular focus on B2B businesses and complex sales environments.

Benedict brings particular expertise in sales management, business development and scaling. He has built and managed sales organisations, developed international markets and worked with founders and management teams to move from founder-led or individual sales efforts to structured, scalable commercial organisations. Today, through Scaling Up Sales, he advises B2B technology, industrial and expertise-based companies on sales strategy, organisation, pipeline management, forecasting and sales leadership.

He also has extensive hands-on turnaround and restructuring experience. His assignments have included interim CEO and turnaround roles, post-merger integration, operational and financial restructuring, cash-flow improvement and preparing companies for financing and due diligence. In one turnaround assignment, he took operational responsibility for a near-bankrupt technology company, restructuring its activities, improving margins and cash flow, internationalising sales and preparing the business for venture capital funding.

His earlier corporate career includes senior sales and strategic roles at IBM and Temenos, where he managed teams, complex B2B sales and international strategic alliances.

Benedict has also worked extensively with entrepreneurs and startups through Swiss entrepreneurship programmes and has held several board and advisory positions. He is a trainer with Startup Board Academy and previously led entrepreneurship and sales-management programmes at EPFL Innovation Park and for CTI/Innosuisse.

His approach combines entrepreneurial pragmatism, commercial discipline and hands-on management experience — helping companies turn strategy into execution and build the structures needed for sustainable growth.

Virginie Verdon

Partner

Virginie Verdon is an entrepreneur, senior management advisor and experienced Board Chair with more than 25 years of experience working with entrepreneurs, startups, scale-ups and SMEs.

She has spent much of her career in B2B technology and innovation-driven companies, working alongside founders, shareholders and management teams through different stages of company development — from early growth and scaling to international expansion, financing, organisational transformation, restructuring and ownership transitions.

Her career includes senior roles with UBS and Swisscom, as well as extensive experience in fast-growing technology businesses. She has contributed to two IPOs and has first-hand experience of scaling companies from around 30 to 300 employees, giving her a practical understanding of the organisational, financial and management challenges that come with rapid growth.

Her approach is strongly entrepreneurial and hands-on. She combines strategic thinking with direct operational experience, having worked as a CxO, turnaround manager, advisor and Board Chair.

Through BST Management Consulting, she has been involved in restructuring and turnaround assignments, operational due diligence, business financing, board advisory and company trade sales.

Virginie also brings extensive governance experience. She has served on and chaired the boards of technology and industrial companies and is the founder and Managing Director of Startup Board Academy, created in 2015 to strengthen governance capabilities within the Swiss startup ecosystem.

Alongside her entrepreneurial and private-sector activities, she has developed specific expertise in government-owned and public-sector organisations. She served for 17 years as Chair of SCAN, a company owned by the Canton of Neuchâtel, after being appointed by the State to oversee a major transformation and restructuring. Earlier, as Director of Economic Development for the Canton of Neuchâtel, she worked at the interface between government, entrepreneurs and established companies.

This combination of entrepreneurial, operational and governance experience allows her to work closely with founders and shareholders when their company reaches a critical stage — whether the challenge is scaling, transformation, restructuring or preparing for its next ownership chapter.

Our sweet spot

We primarily work with Swiss-based entrepreneurs, management teams and shareholders. We have particular experience with:

B2B technology companies
Industrial and engineering businesses
Technology-enabled SMEs
Founder-led businesses
Startups and scale-ups
Privately owned SMEs

We work with companies at different stages of their development — from startups and scale-ups to growing technology companies and established SMEs with revenues of up to approximately CHF 100 million.

We are particularly comfortable with companies where understanding the business requires understanding more than the financial statements:

Complex technologies and products
Specialised B2B markets
Long sales cycles
International customers
Technical organisations
Niche market positions
Founder or owner dependency

State-owned and public-sector companies

BST also has significant experience working with companies and organisations that are fully or partially owned by public authorities.

These organisations operate at the intersection of business, public ownership and political expectations, creating specific governance and management challenges.

We understand the particular environment of state-owned and semi-state-owned companies, where commercial and operational objectives need to be balanced with public mandates, regulatory requirements and multiple stakeholder expectations.

We support boards and management teams in areas such as governance, strategy, organisation, transformation, performance improvement and clarification of roles and responsibilities between ownership, board and management.

This combination of private-sector entrepreneurial experience and an understanding of public ownership environments is a distinctive part of BST's expertise.

How we work

Senior people. Direct involvement.

BST has deliberately remained senior and hands-on. The people you meet are the people who work on your company.

We do not believe in delivering recommendations from a distance. We work alongside entrepreneurs and management teams, challenge when necessary and become involved in implementation when the situation requires it.

When specialist expertise is required — legal, tax, audit, due diligence or other disciplines — we work alongside the appropriate professionals and give our clients access to our extensive network of trusted specialists.

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