About
Dr. Tobias Heilmann
Business psychologist. I build leadership and decision-making systems that keep running without me.
On site, in Swiss organizations, with an eye for the talent and patterns others overlook.
Dr. phil. in business psychology, University of Zurich · campaignfit GmbH since 2011 · Programme Director, CAS Talent Management & Neurodiversity, HWZ · Lecturer at ETH Military Academy, UZH, ZHAW, HWZ
What I do
I work with executive teams at SMEs and at cantonal and federal government organizations across German-speaking Switzerland. The starting point is usually two days on site: I look at how things actually run, not in the meeting room, but where the work happens. After that we rebuild until the new routines hold.
My approach has shifted over the years. I started out developing individual leaders. Today the work is mostly about whole systems: weekly rhythms and a shared situational picture across multiple locations, observable decision criteria instead of gut feeling, sparring at executive level.
Areas of work
Leadership and organizational development
Leadership rhythms, decision systems and steering instruments that make patterns visible across units. Not as a concept, but as something that actually runs day to day.
Personnel selection and assessment
Structured selection procedures for critical positions. They predict job performance considerably better than open conversations and protect against mistaking interview fluency for capability.
Neurodiversity at work
15 to 20 percent of the workforce is neurodivergent. Standard processes are not built for that reality. This is my specialty, and I know the obstacles from my own experience.
Teaching and research
At HWZ Zurich University of Applied Sciences in Business I direct the CAS in Talent Management & Neurodiversity. The programme brings together what I have been working on for years: personnel selection and talent development on one side, a matter-of-fact approach to neurodiversity on the other. For me this is the point where my specialty is no longer an add-on topic but the frame itself.
Alongside that, I have taught at Swiss universities since 2009: at the Military Academy of ETH Zurich (social psychology of groups), at the University of Zurich (leadership for postdocs and doctoral researchers) and at ZHAW. In the Middlesex University DBA programme I supervise doctoral candidates in HR management, neurodiversity at work, and leadership and organizational development in SMEs.
At the Swiss Distance University of Applied Sciences I led the MAS in Business Psychology for ten years, the first of its kind in Switzerland, having built it from scratch.
Background
Dr. phil. in social and business psychology at the University of Zurich. Before that, psychology at Tübingen, with stays at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Harvard Medical School. I started somewhere else entirely, though: with an apprenticeship in banking at JP Morgan.
I founded campaignfit GmbH in 2011. The company is based in Schaffhausen; the work happens across German-speaking Switzerland, wherever the clients are.
- Dr. phil. social and business psychology, University of Zurich
- Programme Director CAS Talent Management & Neurodiversity, HWZ
- Lecturer ETH Military Academy (social psychology), University of Zurich, ZHAW, HWZ
- Advisor Middlesex University DBA, in partnership with Kalaidos University of Applied Sciences
- 15 years in practice with Swiss organizations, since 2011
Publications and articles
I write regularly on leadership, personnel selection and neurodiversity. An overview of the articles is available under Insights. Peer-reviewed publications include work on transactional and transformational leadership in business and the military, and on how followers perceive transformational leadership.
The next step is simple
30 minutes. You tell me where it is stuck. I listen. No sales pitch, no slides, straight talk.