Ulf Mark Schneider

Life and career

Schneider was born and raised in Germany and became a U.S. citizen in 2003. He holds a doctorate in economics from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Schneider was Group Finance Director for Gehe UK plc., a pharmaceutical wholesale and retail distributor, in Coventry, England. Schneider held several senior executive positions starting in 1989 with Gehe’s majority shareholder, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, a diversified German industrial company.

Schneider joined Fresenius in November 2001, when he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Fresenius Medical Care. From May 2003 until June 2016 he served as CEO of the parent company Fresenius. Under Schneider's leadership of Fresenius, the number of employees more than tripled, revenue quadrupled and net income increased twelvefold. While Schneider was CEO, Fresenius also carried out a number of major strategic acquisitions: the private hospital chain HELIOS Kliniken in 2005; U.S. dialysis provider Renal Care Group, in 2006; U.S. pharmaceutical company APP Pharmaceuticals, in 2008; Liberty Dialysis, another major dialysis provider in the United States, in 2011; and, in 2014, the purchase of 41 hospitals from Rhön-Klinikum, through which HELIOS became the largest private hospital operator in Germany.

On June 27, 2016, Schneider was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Nestlé SA, replacing Paul Bulcke. He officially started his position on January 1, 2017. Schneider is the first outsider to run Nestlé since 1922.

The management challenges of global growth and future strategies in the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries are of particular interest to Schneider.

Schneider chairs the European Advisory Board of Harvard Business School and serves on the Board of Directors of the American chemical company DuPont.