The University of St.Gallen can appoint personalities as Honorary Senators for their special services to the HSG.

The University of St.Gallen awards the title of Honorary Senator on its greatest day, the dies academicus. The personality who is to be appointed Honorary Senator is duty-bound to attend that dies academicus.. 

Applications for the appointment of Honorary Senators are submitted by a member of the Senat or by a School. Applications have to be submitted to the President in writing, stating the reasons for the request, and be accompanied by a CV and a list of publications. Subsequently, the Senate decides in a secret ballot who will receive the title of Honorary Senator. The number of Honorary Senators varies from year to year.

The first two Honorary Senators were appointed in 1998, 100 years after the foundation of the University: Dr. Mark M. Wössner for "his special services to the HSG, particularly the great efforts he expended on the establishment and development of the Institute for Media and Communication Management at the HSG", and the former member of the University's Board of Governors, Ferdinand Rüesch, for "his special services to the HSG, particularly his long-standing ideational and material attachment to the HSG".

In 2003, the first woman to be appointed Honorary Senator was former Federal Councillor Ruth Dreifuss. She was awarded the title for "her services to the promotion of a future-oriented Swiss education, science and research policy geared to international competitiveness, thus creating important conditions for a healthy development of our University".

To date, the University of St.Gallen has appointed one woman and 18 men as Honorary Senators. At 47 years of age, Dr. Peter A. Wuffli, a former chairman of UBS, was the youngest Honorary Senator so far. Bishop Ivo Fürer was awarded the title of Honorary Senator when he was 77.