board. The governing board is responsible in particular for monetary policy, asset management strategy, contributing to the stability of the financial system and international monetary cooperation. The Governing Board consists of three members: Chairman: Thomas Jordan Vice Chairman: Fritz Zurbrügg Member: Andréa M. Maechler Chairmen of the governing board Heinrich Kundert, 20 June 1907 – 30 November 1915 August Burckhardt, 1 December 1915 – 26 November 1924 Gottlieb Bachmann, 1 July 1925 – 15 March 1939 Ernst Weber, 1 April 1939 – 31 March 1947 Paul Keller, 1 April 1947 – 31 May 1956 Walter Schwegler, 1 June 1956 – 31 August 1966 Edwin Stopper, 1 September 1966 – 30 April 1974 Fritz Leutwiler, 1 May 1974 – 31 December 1984 Pierre Languetin, 1 January 1985 – 30 April 1988 Markus Lusser, 1 May 1988 – 30 April 1996 Hans Meyer, 1 May 1996 – 31 December 2000 Jean-Pierre Roth, 1 January 2001 – 31 December 2009 Philipp Hildebrand, 1 January 2010 – 9 September 2012 Thomas J. Jordan, Since 18 April 2012 Gold reserves The SNB manages the official gold reserves of Switzerland, which as of 2008 amount to 1,145 tonnes and are valued at 30.5 billion CHF. The gold is believed to be stored in huge vaults beneath the Federal Square (Bundesplatz) to the north of the federal parliament building in Bern, but the SNB treats the location of the gold reserves as a secret. Independent confirmation of the gold's location was obtained by the Bernese newspaper Der Bund in 2008. It published a photograph of the bullion that a Keystone news agency photographer was allowed to take at the SNB premises in Bern in 2001. Der Bund also quoted a retired official of the city's surveying office as saying that the gold vaults take up an area of roughly half the Federal Square and have a depth of dozens of meters, down to the level of the Aar river. The SNB says that the gold reserves are stored in different safe places in Switzerland (70% -mostly under the Bundesplatz in Berne and at the Bank for International Settlements in Basel) and abroad (i.e. Bank of England and Bank of Canada). From the latter years of the 1990s until sometime during 2005, the National Bank transferred from its possession (incompetently, when the gold price was at its historic low) half of its gold reserves, following the Nazi gold