Our Australian and New Zealand subsidiaries have been operational for just over a year now, and it has been an eventful time for Roger and his team. Among the highlights Roger cites the first implantation of a Bonebridge plate in Australia in March 2024, as well as the support of many surgeons who shared their advice and experience, helping us get off the ground with the first patient treatments. “My personal standout moment was welcoming Professor Christian Gerber to Australia, where we hosted over 100 surgeons at various events,” he says. “I have been following Professor Gerber since 2001, as a ‘competitor’ at first. Now I have the privilege to be working alongside him.” Roger is convinced that Bonebridge has built a solid foundation for a stable and growing business in both Australia and New Zealand. Though he admits that in some ways, gaining a foothold in the Southern Hemisphere has been harder than expected: “Even after having achieved TGA registration, there’s a lot of red tape involved in actually bringing our products into hospitals,” he says. “I experience too many ‘tickbox’ barriers that only incur higher administrative costs for all participants.”
But Roger has never shied away from a challenge in his career. He originally completed a commercial apprenticeship, then took on a sales position at a Swiss medical distributor in his early twenties. Roger went on to work for Smith & Nephew and subsequently joined Mathys (now Enovis), where he was eventually put in charge of their shoulder replacement portfolio – one of the milestones in Roger’s career that he proudly looks back on. From 2002–2012, Roger and his colleague and “shoulder buddy” Frank Dallmann helped to develop the Affinis portfolio, which is still a market leader in many European countries and Australia/New Zealand. From 2005 onwards, Roger frequently traveled to Australia to help launch the shoulder products, and he was put in charge of Mathys’s Asia Pacific business in 2014.
Roger didn’t hesitate to relocate down under with his family. “What’s not to love about Australia?” he says. “I love the spontaneous nature of the people, the beauty of the landscapes, and obviously the surf.” The family was initially drawn to Melbourne because of its large European expat community and cosmopolitan feel. They ended up settling down in Sydney, which was closer to the company headquarters. It turned out to be a perfect fit for them. “The beaches around here are amazing, and we love the moderate climate,” Roger says. The family felt right at home in Australia from the very beginning. Now that the kids are away at college – Lia, who’s twenty-six, is a student at the University of Basel, Switzerland, and nineteen-year-old Manuel has just started college in Sydney – Roger gets to devote some extra time to his favorite pastimes. “I love surfing, having a nice coffee and a good meal, and playing tennis,” he says.
Over the years, the latter has definitely become one of his passions: “I usually play once a week with my friends, and I may even participate in an amateur competition at some point.” Roger and his wife Brigitte Marti also follow pro tennis: In 2025, they attended the Australian Open tournament at Melbourne Park, where they witnessed the Australian Alex De Minaur being defeated by Jannik Sinner in the 4th round. “That was our fifth live Australian Open, actually,” Roger says. “The atmosphere at the event is always incredible.” Over the years, they have watched a few of the greats play – including Swiss tennis legend Roger Federer. Obviously, Roger is a fan: “His speech about winning and losing has been truly inspiring to me – that life is not all about winning every single point, but about taking the right steps to win as many ‘games’ as possible.”
Roger credits his upbringing in rural Switzerland for his early start in tennis. He has vivid memories of his childhood in an idyllic village called Flumenthal in the canton of Solothurn. As a kid, he freely roamed around through forests and fields and got to ski on the local slopes. More a land of farms and tractors than of tennis centers, Roger admits. “Actually, funny story: My father worked for the local hydropower plant,” he says. “And he used to fish all kinds of things out of the water – including, one day, a tennis racket.” So Roger spent years hitting balls in the garage of their home before finally taking his game to an actual tennis court. Unsurprisingly, his first professional aspirations included becoming a tennis or soccer pro, or (like most of the kids in his neighborhood) a farmer or postman. But he also wanted to break out of the mold and explore the world. When he took up an internship at a law firm, his boss told him his grades were not good enough to complete a commercial apprenticeship. “I went on to prove him wrong, obviously,” Roger says. “I guess I’ve always had a pragmatic approach to school – I firmly believe that life is the best teacher, and that real learning happens through hands-on experience.”
After 12 years in Australia, Roger feels entirely at home there. But he does still miss a few things about Switzerland: the mountains, the cheese, old friends, and the smell of freshly cut grass. He’s currently thinking about going on a very special trip to his home country: “On one of my next vacations, I’d like to spend some time on a Swiss alp, just helping out a farmer with his daily chores,” he says. In theory, he could do something similar just around the corner: One of their neighbors in Sydney owns a farm about 2–3 hours inland. In any case, Roger and his wife love to travel and want to keep exploring Australia and the rest of the world – preferably on four wheels. “We get a little restless sometimes, and we have always liked camping. During the Covid pandemic, we bought a converted VW Transporter van, which was used as a home office at first. But now that the kids are starting to spread their wings and we have downsized our home, we might spend even more time on the road.”