Profile of Peter Mott
I created a series of profiles as well as providing new photography, for the Zurich International School’s (ZIS) 50th anniversary book. Peter Mott was the ZIS director from 1989–2012
“Status quo is a term I do not like,” claims Peter C. Mott—an understatement from a visionary leader who recently stepped down after twenty-five years of directing first the American International School of Zurich and then Zurich International School.

For half the school’s existence, Mott oversaw unparalleled growth and innovation as two schools merged, new buildings were erected, and campuses added. Against a backdrop of exploding technology, Mott maintained the focus on individual students and a family atmosphere in each campus.
At sixteen, Mott said, he was a terrible student, unmotivated until he was awakened by teachers at a school he attended in Germany. They challenged him to seek answers for himself and to substantiate his discoveries, a process that has led his educational philosophy ever since and is evident in every classroom at ZIS.
“We need to turn students on to wanting to find things out, to know how the world works,” Mott said, noting the jobs of the future don’t even exist yet. “We are about creating responsible citizens of the world who are going to change this world.”
During his tenure, students evolved from pen and paper to electronic tablets, giving them vast libraries of information literally at their fingertips. “I personally think technology is going to change schools in radically and possibly revolutionary ways,” he said, warning that students would not be satisfied with the traditional teacher lecturing in front of a row of desks.”
Mott is a visionary leader in this movement, advocating a design for the Upper School aimed to meet the educational needs of the future with open spaces and learning environments.
With expansive growth have come challenges, one of which was to maintain a sense of family. The motto of the school—learn, care, challenge, lead—is the core set of principals and goals linking each campus and every student, faulty, and staff. Mott compares the school to Switzerland, with individual campuses like cantons, “but all part of a greater whole than the sum of its parts.”
Mott is taking the next step in his own journey as the director of Accreditation for the Commission on American and International Schools Abroad for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges. Welcoming meaningful change, he leaves a landmark tenure at ZIS to embark on another mission of educational leadership.
A medievalist who concentrated on Sir Thomas Mallory’s “Le Mort d”Arthur” as a student, the Round Table is a suitable metaphor for his legacy. “Leadership, honestly, is a collaborative thing. I have learned the value of having a wonderful team in which contrary opinion is not only tolerated but expected, insisted upon!” That team is embedded in the fabric of ZIS, creating a solid foundation of leadership as the school charts its next course.
The status quo was no match for Mott, who claimed impatience as a fault he would admit to, but says in his defense: “You can’t tell the world out there to slow down because we can’t keep up—it’s spinning so incredibly fast!”

