Jürg Marquard

Jürg Marquard was born on 13 July 1945 in Urdorf, canton of Zurich, the son of a German-born dentist. He grew up in Urdorf and attended school there before taking a commercial Matura at the Wirtschaftsgymnasium of the Kantonsschule Zurich.

Already as a teenager he worked as a local reporter for the Limmattaler Tagblatt, covering municipal assemblies and church bazaars for modest line rates. He later recalled sitting under the table as a five-year-old when a radio football report drew more attention than he did, and vowing that one day his would be the voice people listened to.

His father pressed him to study. Marquard refused, telling his father that within a few years he would have his first million in the bank. The elder Marquard did not live to see that ambition fulfilled; the son later used his wealth to support his mother with travel, jewellery and a driving licence her husband had said she would never manage.

In 1965, with about 2,000 Swiss francs borrowed from school friends, Marquard launched the youth music magazine Pop. He edited early issues himself and sold the first print run by hand. Advertising contacts soon brought further capital.

By the late 1960s he had expanded into southern Germany and begun challenging Bravo. He also worked as a concert promoter, disc jockey and radio presenter, including the Schweizer Hitparade on Radio DRS, and was widely known as Mister Pop. By around 1970 Pop was said to have a circulation near 250,000. He declined a multi-million-franc offer from Bauer and continued to build music titles such as Metal Hammer and Musikexpress, while an early Harper's Bazaar German licence proved a costly setback.

After various mergers the youth line became Pop/Rocky, long the second-largest German-language youth magazine behind Bravo. In 1998 Pop/Rocky was merged into the group's Popcorn youth brand.

Marquard's lasting breakthrough in the German-language market came in 1981 with the German edition of Cosmopolitan. As a licence holder he learned the power of international brands, then launched Joy as a proprietary women's title, insisting on a compact handbag format that kiosk buyers favoured against expert advice.

Titles such as Shape and Mädchen enlarged a portfolio aimed at self-confident working women rather than the older church-children-kitchen model. In 1993, citing an annual profit of 26.8 million Swiss francs after tax and depreciation, he described himself as Switzerland's highest-earning publisher. Colleagues later said the public jet-set image masked a cautious, Swiss cost-controller who spread risk and trusted managers only after careful testing.

From 1988 Marquard became one of the first Western publishers to operate in Hungary and later Poland, acquiring licences that included Playboy in those markets and investing in growth titles after the end of the Cold War. He later sold youth magazines to Springer for a large sum and redirected capital into Eastern markets and new women's titles.

In 2005 he bought Germany's listed Computec Media, a specialist in electronic entertainment, games and multimedia magazines, to balance dependence on advertising and female readers with male-skewed, distribution-heavy titles. When Eastern newspapers and printing businesses grew politically tangled, he disposed of assets he no longer wanted to run as a relatively apolitical entrepreneur.

In spring 2005 Marquard co-produced and starred in Traumjob on Swiss public television, a licensed adaptation of Donald Trump's The Apprentice in which contestants competed for a job in his company. The series drew peak ratings and made him a national television figure beyond the magazine trade.

From 2019 he appeared as an investor on Die Höhle der Löwen Schweiz, first on TV24 and later on 3 Plus TV, backing young Swiss entrepreneurs on air. The role reinforced his public image as a self-made media boss who still enjoyed spotting new ideas late in his career.

Marquard lived in Herrliberg overlooking Lake Zurich and made no secret of luxury homes, cars, a yacht and a Caribbean residence. Tabloids tracked his three marriages and his pride in his children. He married Priscilla in 1991; archival SRF footage covered the celebrity wedding. In 2008 he married model and entrepreneur Raquel Lehmann, who became Raquel Marquard.

He was the father of five children, including son Philipp and daughter Aline, and stepfather to model Bianca Gubser (later Bianca Keyman). He also held the honorary office of Hungarian honorary consul-general in Switzerland from 1995 and received Hungarian state medals in 2005 and 2006 for that work. He was admitted to Zurich's Club zum Rennweg.

Jürg Marquard died in Zurich on 14 September 2026 at the age of 81 after a long and serious illness. Blick first reported the death from sources close to the family, saying he had passed away peacefully. His wife Raquel Marquard confirmed the news to Swiss Radio and Television (SRF).

Obituaries in SRF, NZZ, Bluewin, Nau, Watson and 20 Minuten recalled the arc from a borrowed 2,000 francs and Pop magazine to Cosmopolitan, Eastern European expansion, Traumjob and Die Höhle der Löwen Schweiz. Musician Chris von Rohr of Krokus paid tribute to the publisher who had covered his band for years in Pop.

Marquard stands out in Swiss media history as a rare self-made publisher who reached international scale while retaining ownership of his group. He shaped youth and women's magazine culture in German-speaking Europe, pioneered Western magazine investment in post-Communist Central Europe, and later translated boardroom authority into prime-time television.

NZZ and other commentators contrasted the flashy public persona with a cautious, entrepreneurial method: calculate the adventure, cut costs, sell when the story is finished. For many Swiss viewers he remains Mister Pop and the Traumjob boss; for the industry he remains the builder of Marquard Media Group.

From 1995 Marquard served as Hungary's honorary consul-general in Switzerland. On 12 December 2005 the Hungarian government awarded him the Pro Auxilio Civium Hungarorum commemorative medal, and on 6 December 2006 the Hero of Freedom honorary medal, in recognition of that consular work.

He belonged to Zurich's Club zum Rennweg and for years ranked among Bilanz's lists of the 300 richest people in Switzerland, a status Swiss obituaries repeated after his death.