GSTAAD SKI SCHOOL. . . WHERE MOUNTAIN AND HIGH SOCIETY MEET

Promenade 63 in Gstaad is where the Swiss Ski School is located. This is not only the entrance of the premises that Jan Brand, the ski school director enters and leaves on a daily basis, but is also frequented by a broad spectrum of clients. These range from Gstaad locals passionate about their mountains all the way to world stars. After becoming head of the company in 2009, today Jan Brand is managing his tenth winter season. Highly motivated, as always determined to give every guest an unforgettable experience on the slopes this winter, he makes it his mission to find the best matches between ski student and ski instructor.

His introduction to the business was in an emergency capacity taking over from its predecessor just before Christmas in the high season of 2009. His main profession at the time was that of a carpenter. He was literally thrown into the deep end. Only a few days were left for him to set up his team sufficiently to be up to the throng of prospective customers at that time of year. Fortunately improvisation was no stranger to the likes of an experienced ski instructor and ski racer like Jan Brand. In the meantime he has advanced himself with further courses and qualifications, so there’s very little that will upturn the apple cart for him today. “A special challenge for me as a husband and father is however the disparate workload across the year. In the winter months I work 200% and can practically never be found at home because of this. I strictly make up for it in the summer though and go on vacation with my family for a month.”

Jan Brand

As head of a ski school, today Jan Brand is seldom seen on skis in his professional capacity. The main ambit of his workload comprises the recruitment of instructors and getting to know them personally, all 120 of them by name, investing the time to familiarise himself with their language, instruction level and social competencies. A special booking system ensures that guest and instructor are optimally matched.

This expertise is what makes the ski school in Gstaad so unique. High-end guests (on average plenty of these can be found in the town) are only satisfied with top quality. And top quality is what Jan Brand always strives towards. His ski instructors are multi-talented: A command of German, English and French are a prerequisite. In the case of guests with different languages, for example instructors with knowledge of Russian or Arabic are deployed. But language is not all that counts. Ski instructors have to be able to deal with people from every echelon of society, from infants to the elderly, from Sheiks to local farmers, from loners to party animals. A third of the instructors in the peak season are Swiss. Their guests range from the Gulf States through to the Lake Geneva region, or further west from the UK and France.

Art of Snow asked Jan Brand what makes the job of a ski instructor so special and his immediate answer was the contrasts one is confronted with: “Imagine this scenario: Counter 1 has a mother from Gstaad standing in front of it who sent her child to participate in the Locals’ Week but now missed a day due to illness. Very worried, she’s enquiring about a CHF 15 refund for the day her child was absent. While Counter 2 has a butler for a super-rich mogul booking a ski instructor for each of the seven family members for a fortnight, inclusive of heli-skiing, dog-sledding etc. – all this to the tune of 20,000 Swiss francs. These are the kind of diverse situations our staff has to be able to handle within their comfort zones – be it diplomatically or elegantly.”

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