Publications

"My Path, My Perspective" - Autobiography

Stephan Schmidheiny
January 2006 (Second Edition)

"The many questions I am asked about my motivations and actions suggest that my ways of being and doing are not ordinary. Yet like most people, I am a product of my life experiences, which in turn have been both a cause and an effect of my Weltanschauung, my view of the world. I would like to summarize these here for the benefit of my friends and associates.

I believe that much of what I am was already part and parcel of my personality in the early years of my life, during my childhood and adolescence.

Entrepreneurship is a time-honored tradition among the Schmidheiny clan, and my father Max and other family members often discussed business affairs in my presence. My great-grandfather laid the foundations of the family business when he opened his first brick factory in Heerbrugg, in eastern Switzerland. My grandfather, in turn, invested in the emerging cement industry and later in asbestos. In the next generation, these and other investments, such as those in WILD-LEITZ and BBC Brown Boveri, reflected the entrepreneurial spirit of my father Max and his brother Ernst. "

Excerpt from autobiography by Stephan Schmidheiny, Founder VIVA Trust.

Versión español

English version

Versão português