Christian Kälin

Kälin was born in 1971 in Zurich. In his teenage years, he began collecting immigration and citizenship laws from different countries, writing to embassies to request copies of their legislations and keeping the documents in a big binder. He told writer and journalist Atossa Araxia Abrahamian of this time in his life: "What always fascinated me was the inclusionary and exclusionary aspect of citizenship [...] I wanted to understand how different countries handled this."[9] Kälin studied in Paris, Auckland and Zurich and earned master's and PhD degrees in law from the University of Zurich.[10]

Kälin is the chairman of Henley & Partners.[11] He is also a member of the Governing Board of the Investment Migration Council in Geneva.[12] He has spoken at international conferences on different aspects of international residence, citizenship and real estate and is a member of the panel of judges for the International Property Awards.[13] In 2016 at The Economist Mediterranean Leadership Summit he gave a keynote speech on how smaller states can harness the benefits of Citizenship-by-Investment programs to boost their foreign direct investments, and that this has been practiced since Roman times.[14][15] Kälin is licensed as an independent insurance intermediary by the Swiss Federal Government and a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), the International Tax Planning Association (ITPA), and the Investment Migration Council (IMC).[12] He is also the founder and chairman of Swiss Insurance Holding AG[16] and several other companies in the financial services sector.

He is known for pioneering the concept of "citizenship-by-investment", whereby people can acquire citizenship in return for investing in a country of which they are not a national.[17] Kälin is a frequent guest and expert in newspapers and TV channels including CBS 60 Minutes, which introduced him as the man who “more or less invented the business”,[18] and the GQ Magazine, which described him as the man who "has transformed the lives of his clients and the economies of the countries he's advised".[19]

In 2006, Kälin published the first edition of the Switzerland Business & Investment Handbook. Kälin’s “claim to fame”[20] is a 766-page guide to doing business in Switzerland, a tome found in many of the country’s embassies.

Kälin is also featured in a book about the investment migration industry, Cosmopolites: The Coming of the Global Citizen by former Reuters New York journalist Atossa Abrahamian, published in 2015.[21]

Kälin created[22] the Henley Passport Index,[23] which was first published in 2006, and is regarded as the inventor of the passport index concept.[24] The index displays the travel freedom each citizen in this world has. In partnership with the IATA, visa regulations are monitored and analyzed worldwide.

In collaboration with Dr. Dimitry Kochenov, an EU professor of law, Kälin authored The Quality of Nationality Index (QNI), an annual academic report published since 2015. The index ranks the quality of nationalities based on internal and external factors. The Financial Times commented that the authors “rightly consider that it is not only the freedom to travel and settle elsewhere that makes a person’s nationality valuable. Nationality of a country also gives you the right to live there.” [25]

Kälin and Henley & Partners have worked with the governments of Antigua and Barbuda, Austria, Australia, Cyprus, Greece, Grenada, Malta, Montenegro, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, and Thailand.[26] Kälin states that "citizenship is inherently unjust".[26]

In 2007, Kälin worked with the Government of St Kitts and Nevis to reform their Citizenship-by-Investment program and to initiate the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation impacting the transition of the shuttered sugar industry. This was a decisive turning point and the basis of the investment migration industry as it is shaped today as it allowed the efficient processing of a larger number of Citizenship-by-Investment applications. With the launch of this first modern Citizenship-by-Investment program and the establishment of the Sugar Industry Diversification Foundation direct contribution option, Kälin and Henley & Partners laid out a path of continuous growth for St Kitts and Nevis and subsequently for several other Caribbean states which adopted this system.[27]

In 2010, Kälin was introduced to SCL Group and its CEO Alexander Nix during the St. Kitts and Nevis 2010 election campaign. Both sides stated that there was never a formal working relationship between them and that the exchange of ideas and information that took place between them was a natural and normal consequence of their operating in the same region and countries since many years.[28][29]

In 2014, Kälin compared the diversification of an investment portfolio with the diversification of a passport portfolio in a BBC interview, which was referred to many times since.[30]

Following 9/11, Kälin stated in a widely quoted article in the Financial Times in 2015 that demand for alternative residence and citizenship has significantly accelerated: “A lot more people are seeing the value of an alternative citizenship.”[31]

Kälin was the lead consultant in the creation and implementation of the Citizenship-by-Investment program of Antigua and Barbuda in 2013. In 2014, Kälin was appointed chairman of Henley & Partners following many years in different senior roles at the firm.[32]

In May 2017, Kälin consulted with Malta's Prime Minister, Joseph Muscat, and Minister of Justice, Owen Bonnici together with law firm Mishcon de Reya, to write to the investigative journalist, Daphne Caruana Galizia, in an attempt to get her to remove blog posts critical of him.[33] Daphne Caruana Galizia was a fierce critic of Malta's citizenship by investment program.[34]

Asked by The Economist, Kälin responded, "If you operate globally, you have to have more than one passport", but declined to reveal how many passports he holds himself.[35] He has written and held speeches on the benefits of residence and citizenship by investment programs as tools to attract foreign direct investments for smaller states.[36][37]

In 2019, Kälin’s Andan Foundation supported the Adonis Musati Project in South Africa[38] and launched the MIT SOLVE Innovation for Refugee Inclusion Prize in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.[39]

• Switzerland Business and Investment Handbook (John Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, US, 2006)[10][40]
• Global Residence and Citizenship Handbook[10]
• Kälin – Kochenov Quality of Nationality Index[10]
• International Real Estate Handbook (Christian H. Kälin, Andrew J. Taylor)[41]
• Anti-Money Laundering (Christian H. Kälin, Wouter H. Muller, John G. Goldsworth)[42]
• Global Residence and Citizenship Programs 2017–2018: The Definitive Comparison of the Leading Investment Migration Programs (Christian H. Kälin) for Henley & Partners[43]
• Ius Doni: The Acquisition of Citizenship by Investment by Christian H. Kälin[44]
• 'Investment Migration: The New Competitive Edge' (Christian H. Kälin) in The International Family Offices Journal (December 2017)[45]
• 'New Citizenship Options Will Open Up' (Christian H. Kälin) in the 2017 Knight Frank Wealth Report[46]
• 'Only as Strong as Their Weakest Link' (Christian H. Kälin) in the 2018 Knight Frank Wealth Report[47]
• 'Swiss Companies in International Tax Planning' (Christian H. Kälin) in Trust and Trustees, volume 11, issue 10 (October 2005)
• A Guide to Investment Migration for Governments and Global Citizens (Christian H. Kälin) for Henley & Partners, in partnership with The Economist Group (April 2018)[48]
• 'Malta's Due Diligence Will Become the Global Standard' (Christian H. Kälin) for Investment Migration Insider (May 2018)[49]
• 'Consolidation Will Drive the Industry Forward' (Christian H. Kälin) for the 2018/2019 Investment Migration Yearbook[50]
• Ius Doni in International Law and EU Law by Christian H. Kälin[51]