Howard Rosen was born in 1955, and grew up in London. He studied law at Exeter College, Oxford University, and was awarded his degree in Jurisprudence in 1978. He  qualified as an English solicitor in 1980. Post qualification, he initially worked in  private practice in a London solicitors’ firm. From 1981 to 1988, he was in-house counsel for international leasing companies specialising in the legal and tax aspects of international finance. In 1983, he was moved to Zurich by his then employer.

At the beginning of 1989, Howard Rosen returned to private practice as an English solicitor and established Howard Rosen Solicitors, an English law firm, in Zug, Switzerland. He is an experienced lawyer specialising in international commercial, corporate, and finance law; international leasing law for movable assets such as aircraft and trains; and trusts and foundations.

As well as being the principal of Howard Rosen Solicitors, he is also the founder and managing director of Rosetrust AG, a boutique trust company specialised in setting up and running corporate structures, associations, and foundations in Switzerland, and Avtras (Aviation & Transport Services GmbH), a specialist transport consultancy company, both also based in Zug.

Since 1996, Howard Rosen has been the chairman of the Rail Working Group, a global NGO constituted by UNIDROIT, the International Institute for Unification of Private Law, which is focused on the adoption around the world of the Luxembourg Rail Protocol to the Cape Town Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment. He has been actively involved in the development, drafting, and ratification of the Cape Town Convention itself and the Aviation and (Luxembourg) Rail Protocols thereto. He has participated in various diplomatic conferences and taken a leading role in drafting and negotiating contracts, regulations for the international registry all relating to the operation of the Luxembourg Rail Protocol. He has also worked closely with Professor Sir Roy Goode KC on the Official Commentary to the Luxembourg Rail Protocol.

Howard has assisted the UN Economic Commission for Europe in drafting and then revising the UN Model Rules on Permanent Identification of Railway Rolling Stock and is a member of the revisions committee which meets annually to update the Rules as needed. He works closely with governments, parliamentarians, academics, and international organisations including UNIDROIT, OTIF, the OECD, the European Union Commission, the African Union, and the United Nations Economic Commissions in Europe and Africa, as well as with financiers, operators, manufacturers, and professional advisers in the rail industry. He is a member of the African Union experts’ group on the African Integrated Rail Network, a member of, and Chair of the Commission of Experts to the Supervisory Authority constituted under the Luxembourg Rail Protocol and a correspondent of UNIDROIT

Howard Rosen is the founder and president of Swiss Friends of Oxford University, a Swiss charitable association based in Zug, and works closely with the University. In 2018, he was honoured as a Distinguished Friend of Oxford University. In 2023, he became a founder trustee of the International Panel on the Information Environment, a Swiss charitable foundation based in Switzerland.

Howard Rosen is a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, the International Bar Association, the Bar Association of the Canton Zug, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and is enrolled as a Solicitor in the Republic of Ireland. He is a correspondent of UNIDROIT, a member of the Institute of Directors, London, and a 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) from 2005 to 2012 and continued to run its Public Affairs Commission until 2016.

Howard Rosen is a contributor to numerous journals and books on asset finance, railways, and trusts, and is a regular speaker at, and moderator of, rail seminars and conferences around the world.

In the 2003 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Howard Rosen was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to British business in Switzerland. He has British and Swiss nationality, is married with two sons, lives in Zurich, and in his spare time, sings in a local choir and is a keen aquarist.