Stephan Schmidheiny
Swiss businessman, convicted killer (born 1947)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Stephan Ernst Schmidheiny (born 29 October 1947) is a Swiss billionaire businessman, industrialist and philanthropist. He is known for his work at Eternit as well as his legal cases involving convictions of manslaughter.
29 October 1947
- Businessman
- industrialist
- philanthropist
Stephan Schmidheiny PhD | |
|---|---|
 Schmidheiny, c. 1992 | |
| Born | Stephan Ernst Schmidheiny 29 October 1947 Balgach, Switzerland |
| Education | University of Zurich (PhD) |
| Occupations |
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| Known for | Asbestos scandal |
| Spouses | Ruth Schmidheiny
(m. 1974; div. 2002)Viktoria Werner
(m. 2012) |
| Children | 2 |
| Convictions |
|
| Criminal charge |
|
| Penalty |
|
| Website | www |
Early life and education
Stephan Ernst Schmidheiny was born 29 October 1947 in Balgach, Switzerland to Max Schmidheiny and Adda Schmidheiny (née Scherrer; d. 1997). He is a fourth generation member of one of the key industrial families in Switzerland. Schmidheiny completed his Law studies with a PhD at the University of Zurich in 1972.[1]
Career
In 1972, Schmidheiny started his business career at Eternit. In 1976, at the age of 29, he was named CEO of the Swiss Eternit Group. According to his brother Thomas Schmidheiny, their father Max Schmidheiny decided to divide his industrial empire into two halves: asbestos for Stephan, cement for Thomas. As a result of this split of activities, Schmidheiny inherited Eternit.
While Schmidheiny withdrew from asbestos production and Eternit, he invested in new industrial segments, building up a multinational conglomerate of shareholdings by adding enterprises in the areas of forestry, banking, consumer goods, power generation, as well as electronic and optical equipment. He also joined the boards of directors of leading companies such as ABB Asea Brown Boveri, Nestlé, Swatch, and UBS AG.
In 1985 Schmidheiny supported Nicolas Hayek in his bid for the Swiss watch holding company Société de Microélectronique et d'Horlogerie(SMH), which resulted in the rescue of the Swiss watch industry. Later from this alliance, the present day Swatch Group was formed.[2]
Philanthropy
Philanthropic pursuits have been important to Schmidheiny and since the 1990s, he has devoted his life to these pursuits. Schmidheiny is an advocate and leader in the field of sustainable development. He served as adviser on sustainability to the United Nations as well as to the OECD.[3][4]
In the 1980s he created FUNDES, an organization that supports the development of small and medium-sized enterprises in several Latin American countries. According to recent Swiss accounts, Schmidheiny began buying Chilean forest land in 1982, and he now owns over 120,000 hectares in Southern Chile, near Concepción, land which the Mapuche Indians claim has been theirs since time immemorial. The Mapuche charge that some of the land Schmidheiny bought was stolen from them during the Pinochet dictatorship, using that regime's standard techniques of intimidation, torture, and murder.[5]
In March 2019, two months before his conviction on two counts of involuntary manslaughter,[6] Forbes included Schmidheiny in its list of the world's most generous philanthropists outside of the US.[7]
Rio Summit 1992
Following his involvement in the Rio Summit, Schmidheiny authored the book Change of Course: Global Business Prospects for Development and the Environment,[8] published by MIT Press in 1992. His book offers an extensive analysis of how businesses can make sustainable development their focus, his book has been translated into fifteen languages.[9] He also contributed to Financing Change: The Financial Community, Eco-efficiency, and Sustainable Development [10] also published by MIT Press.
Fundación Avina
In the 1990s Schmidheiny established the Fundación Avina ,[11] which contributes to sustainable development in Latin America by encouraging productive alliances among social and business leaders and today is a leading player in that field. The foundation pioneered a South American microfinance system similar to that of Muhammad Yunus whose widely praised system benefits the citizens of Bangladesh.[12]
Other philanthropy
In 1993, Schmidheiny in memory of his late brother Alexander, who died in 1992, founded the Alexander Schmidheiny Foundation [13] with the inheritance from his brother's estate.
Schmidheiny supports arts and culture through a series of initiatives. He has developed and expanded the art collection of his deceased brother Alexander, the Daros Collection. The Daros Collection, based in Zurich is a substantial collection of North American and European art from the second half of the 20th century.[14]
Personal life
In 2023, six months before his second conviction for manslaughter, his net worth was estimated by Bilanz to be CHF3.75 billion.[15]
Legal disputes
Since 2009, due to his involvement in his family's industrial dynasty and despite his efforts to exit from asbestos, Schmidheiny has been involved in trials in Italy, one for environmental disaster and another for voluntary manslaughter, both connected to the use of asbestos in the factories of Eternit.
In the first trial, Schmidheiny was sentenced to 16 years imprisonment on February 13, 2012. On June 3, 2013, the judgment given in February was confirmed and increased to 18 years imprisonment for environmental damage by the Turin Appeals Court.[16] In November 2014, it was ruled that the statute of limitations had passed.[17][18] In 2014, Schmidheiny was acquitted of the charges for alleged negligent behavior in Italy. In 2015, a second trial called "Eternit Bis" began,[19] Schmidheiny defended against the accusation of voluntary manslaughter. On November 29, 2016, the allegations raised in Eternit Bis were dismissed by the court in Turin and the case closed.[20]
He admitted in an interview in 2015[21] that the strain from the legal proceedings in Italy had deeply affected him. Beyond the aforementioned legal proceedings, Schmidheiny set up funds for victims of asbestos-related diseases in South Africa and Italy, as these countries had no successor company to Eternit, which could bear the financial consequences of asbestos exposure.[22]
In May 2019, Schmidheiny was sentenced to four years in prison by a Turin court for involuntary manslaughter in the death of two workers.[6] The ruling followed a decade-long battle between Schmidheiny, the Italian government, former Eternit workers, and residents of towns near the company's asbestos plants. Prosecutor Gianfranco Colace said the ruling set a precedent on deaths from cancer and pulmonary diseases, which can take years to develop after contact with asbestos fiber[23] In 2023, he was sentenced to 12 years in prison on aggravated manslaughter charges related to the deaths of 392 people in Casale Monferrato.[24]
In October 2025, the Turin Court of Appeals reduced his sentence from Novara Court’s twelve year ruling to nine years and six months for aggravated manslaughter.[25][26]
Awards
In 1993, Schmidheiny received an honorary doctorate from the Instituto Centroamerica de Administración de Empresas (INCAE), Costa Rica[27] and the same honorary doctorate in 1996 by Yale University.[28] and in 2001 by Rollins College,[29] Florida, and the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), Caracas.[30]
In 2001, Schmidheiny received the Zayed International Prize for the Environment for "Environmental Action Leading to Positive Change in Society".[31]
In 2007, during the PODER Green Forum, Schmidheiny was awarded a Philanthropy Award.[32]