Jürg Marquard

Jürg Marquard (born 13 July 1945) is a Swiss businessman, publisher, and television personality. He is among the 300 wealthiest Swiss, with a net worth of 500 million Swiss francs according to Bilanz.^[1]

Marquard was born 13 July 1945 in Zürich, Switzerland, the eldest of three sons, to Ernst Marquard (1913–1972), a dentist, and Simone Marquard (née Eggli).^[2] He has two brothers; Daniel Marquard and Andreas Marquard.^[3]

His paternal ancestors immigrated from Germany and became citizens in Zürich in 1921.^[4] From an early age he was interested and engaged in journalism. After completing the Matura, he told his father he would not pursue a college degree and instead become a full-time publisher of magazines.^[5]

He was able to borrow 1,000 Swiss Francs (US$3,200 in 2024) to start his first magazine Pop.^[6] Besides this activity he engaged several years as moderator of the Swiss Hitparade on Swiss Radio and was often referred as "Mr. Hitparade".

After the founding period, in which Marquard edited Pop himself, the magazine became increasingly commercial and, after various mergers with other German youth magazines, it became Pop/Rocky, the second-largest German youth magazine behind Bravo. In 1998, Pop/Rocky was merged with the publisher's own youth and music magazine Popcorn, which had established itself as the international umbrella brand for the Marquard Media Group's youth magazine division. Marquard made broke into the German-language magazine market in 1981 with the magazine Cosmopolitan. He later published those magazines exclusively in Poland and Hungary.

In early 2005 he became active as co-producer and protagonist of the reality series Traumjob, which has been a licensed version of Donald Trump's The Apprentice. This series achieved the highest ratings within Swiss Television.^[7][8][9] From 2019 to 2020 he was also active as investor in the Swiss version of Shark Tank, Höhle der Löwen (Schweiz), which aired on the private channel 3plus.^[10][11][12] where he invested in promising start-ups. He resigned from this position for medical reasons,^[13] hand was succeeded by DJ Antoine. In 2019 he started to be involved in real estate investment and development activities around Lake Zurich. Together with development company Inizia AG and Urs Ledermann he formed LMI Property AG.^[14][15] He became the honorary consul of Hungary in Switzerland in 1995.^[16]

Marquard initially married Mexican-born Rocio, a native of Cancún, which whom he had a daughter,^[3] Aline Dobrova (née Marquard) in 1986. They divorced a couple of years later. On 19 August 1991, Marquard married American-born model Priscilla Ogilvie (born 1966).

Marquard ultimately moved to Miami, Florida, US, where his children were raised. He did not like the American way of life, and after obtaining a divorce returned to Switzerland, where he had a brief liaison with racing driver Christina Surer.

On July 22, 2008, Marquard married his thied wife, Raquel Lehmann (formerly Gubser; born 1963), also a former model, in a civil ceremony in St. Moritz.^[2] She was formerly married to Stefan Gubser, a Swiss actor and Roger Lehmann, a financier. Through this marriage, Marquard has two stepchildren;

• Bianca Manuela Keyman (née Gubser; born 23 December 1988), a businesswoman and socialite, married to Ahmed Keyman.^[1] They have two children.^[4]
• Vincent Ralph Lehmann (born 1996), an alum of Northeastern University

Marquard resides in Herrliberg, Switzerland on Lake Zurich.^[5] Between 1992 and 2022, Marquard has been a long-term tenant at the tower penthouse "La Tuor" of the Badrutt's Palace Hotel, after he took-over the lease from Gunter Sachs. Since then he hosted annual parties including a New Year reception where he often received over 200 guests.

He retains a chalet "Chantarella" in St. Moritz and additionally owns a property, "Villa Le Mangabey", on Nevis in the Caribbean.^[8] He owns the 160-foot yacht Azzurra II.^[6][7]

• Christoph Müller: Hallo Kollege! SRF Reporter on April 14, 2005 (in German)
• Geboren am – 13. Juli 1945 SRF am 9 August 2019