Hans-Rudolf Merz (born 10 November 1942) is a Swiss politician.
He was elected member of the Swiss Federal Council on 10 December 2003 as member of the Free Democratic Party (FDP/PRD). He heads the Federal Department of Finance.
Born in Herisau, Switzerland, he studied at Hochschule St. Gallen and graduated in 1971 as Dr. rer. publ.
From 1969 to 1974, he was party secretary of the Free Democratic Party (FDP/PRD) in St. Gallen. Since 1977 he worked as a management consultant.
In 1997, he was elected to the Swiss Council of States for the canton of Appenzell Outer Rhodes. He presided the finance committee and was a member of the foreign policy committee.
At the time of his election to the Federal Council, he was on the board of directors of the Helvetia-Patria insurance company and Anova Holding . He was also member of the board of trustees of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation .
He is married and father of three sons.
