HANNA BYLAND
When decisions
matter.
Trusted counsel for founders, families and foundation boards carrying responsibility beyond themselves.
Doing the difficult. Doing it well.
Position
Over the years, working with different institutions, I have noticed that the most important questions rarely arise because knowledge is missing.
They arise when responsibilities, each legitimate on their own, begin pulling in different directions.
A foundation wants to honour its origin while remaining relevant. A board wants to protect stability while allowing something new to emerge. A founder wants to give freedom without losing the essence of what created it.
Those tensions are often the sign of an institution that is alive. The challenge is to navigate them with integrity and understand what today’s choices create for tomorrow’s institution.
The privilege is not ownership.
It is being entrusted.
Practice
Most situations I enter already have expertise around the table.
The legal questions have been considered. The financial implications have been calculated. The operational realities are understood. The reputational consequences are present.
And yet there is no clarity regarding the way forward.
In my experience, these moments often occur when different responsibilities have become intertwined. A question that appears legal may also be about trust. A governance issue may reveal a deeper question about the character of the institution.
My role is to understand the situation in its entirety, distinguish the different layers and challenge what is said against what must remain true.
From there, clarity emerges. Not only for a decision that works today, but for one my clients can still stand behind years later.
The decision remains in the room
with those entrusted to make it.
HANNA BYLAND
Hanna Byland is a Swiss lawyer and foundation specialist.
Her perspective comes from working with institutions in different forms of responsibility. She serves on foundation boards and investment committees, supports boards at defining moments, and carries executive responsibility for a Swiss entrepreneurship foundation with a 40 year history.
Over time, these roles have shaped the way she approaches her work.
Institutions look different when you are responsible for carrying them. Decisions are no longer theoretical. They influence people, relationships, culture and the institution that will exist years later.
This experience shapes her counsel.
She combines the independence of an external perspective with the understanding of someone who knows what it means to be entrusted herself.
My counsel is personal, while being embedded in the established legal practice of her law firm (AWG).
A small number of clients. Relationships built over time. Institutions treated with care.
Roles
- Legal counsel to Swiss foundation boards
- Chief Executive Officer of a Swiss entrepreneurship foundation
- Foundation board member
- Investment committee member
- Admitted to the Bar in the Basel region, working in German and English
Perspective
Every decision and the reasoning behind it teaches me something.
The essays are where I explore recurring patterns from practice and the questions that shape institutions, responsibility and judgement.
- Institutional DriftInstitutions rarely drift because people stop caring. More often, they drift through reasonable decisions made by responsible people. A small exception becomes a habit. A practical solution becomes a principle.Read more →
- The Character of an InstitutionA foundation is, by definition, a legal person. A person does not move through life with only a set of rules. A person develops character. I have started wondering whether institutions are not so different.Read more →
- The Day Expertise Stops Being EnoughI have rarely sat in a board meeting where expertise was missing. And yet there are moments when a question enters the room and something starts to shift. Not because people do not understand the complexity — because they understand it from their respective expertise.Read more →
Contact
The first conversation is always informal.
Most meaningful mandates begin with a situation or the sense that something deserves careful thought.
The first conversation is an opportunity to understand where you are, what question you are carrying and whether my experience can be helpful.
We’ll talk in confidence.
You’ll leave with confidence.