Thomas Schmidheiny


Thomas Schmidheiny is a Swiss billionaire businessman, and the former chairman of cement manufacturer Holcim.

Early life

Thomas Schmidheiny was born in 1945, the son of Max Schmidheiny. The family's construction materials empire was divided in 1984, with Thomas inheriting Holcim, the concrete and cement company, and his brother Stephan, also a billionaire, was given the construction company Eternit.

Career

Until 2003, Schmidheiny was the chairman of Holcim, one of the world's leading cement manufacturers, founded by his grand-uncle in 1912. Schmidheiny resigned his chairmanship as part of a deal to settle an investigation of insider trading in Spain. He has remained on the Board since that time. Since the merger between Holcim and Lafarge Thomas Schmidheiny detains 11.4% of the company Lafarge-Holcim and is the biggest shareholder of the firm.

Education

Schmidheiny holds a doctorate from Tufts University and a bachelor's degree from Zurich Polytechnic, and an MBA from IMD Business School, Switzerland.

Honors

The Indian School of Business has a Thomas Schmidheiny chair of family business. As of 2012, the post was held by Kavil Ramachandran.

Personal life

Schmidheiny is married with four children; he owns vineyards and wineries in Argentina, Switzerland and the US, including his residence in Klosters.