Howard Rosen | Chairman
Rail Working Group

HOWARD ROSEN C.B.E, M.A. (Oxon) Howard Rosen studied law at Exeter College, Oxford University. He obtained his degree in Jurisprudence in 1978, qualified as an English solicitor and in 1989 established an English law firm, Howard Rosen Solicitors, in Zug, Switzerland. He specialises in international commercial and finance and leasing law and trusts and has been advising on transport finance for close to 40 years. Aside from being the principal of Howard Rosen Solicitors, he is also founder and Managing Director of Rosetrust AG, Zug, a commercial trust company, and Aviation Advocacy Sàrl, based in Nyon, Switzerland. Since 1996, Howard has been the Chairman of the Rail Working Group, a worldwide not for profit association, constituted by UNIDROIT, the Institute for Unification of Private International Law, focused on the 2007 Luxembourg Rail Protocol to the Cape Town Treaty on International Interests in Mobile Equipment. This global treaty makes private sector finance of railway equipment easier and cheaper. As such he works closely with governments, UN agencies and other intergovernmental organisations as well as with financiers, operators, manufacturers and professional advisers working in the rail industry. Howard is a contributor to various journals, including Asset Finance and Leasing Digest, Leasing World, Private Client Business, the Cape Town Convention Journal, the Uniform Law Review, Trust and Trustees, the European Review of Private Law, the Uniform Commercial Code Law Journal Law in Transition, Railways of the World, the International Rail Journal, the Railway Gazette and Railways Africa. He is a regular speaker at, and chairman of, rail seminars and conferences around the world. Howard is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, the International Bar Association and the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and he is also enrolled as a Solicitor in the Republic of Ireland. He is a Correspondent of UNIDROIT, a member of the Institute of Directors, London, and former President and now honorary councillor of the British-Swiss Chamber of Commerce. He was President of the Council of British Chambers of Commerce in Europe (COBCOE) between 2005 and 2012 and chair of its public affairs committee until 2016. In 2017 he received the COBCOE Chairman’s award for Special Contribution to Business. He is a Trustee and Ambassador at Large for the Commonwealth Jewish Council and works with various Jewish communities around the world. Howard is also the founder and now President of Swiss Friends of Oxford University, a Swiss charity focused on supporting the University and in 2018 Howard was made a Distinguished Friend of Oxford University. From 2020 until 2021 Mr Rosen was a member of the Oxford University Commission on AI & Good Governance and in 2021 he became a member of the steering board of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research and Education project to develop Novel Traction Systems for Sustainable Railway Futures in low-income countries. In the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Howard was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to British business in Switzerland. He is married with two sons and lives in Zurich.