Thomas Schmidheiny

Thomas Schmidheiny
Image	; Schmidheiny at the St. Gallen Symposium, 2004
Born	17 December 1945 (Forbes)
Nationality	Swiss
Residence	Jona, Switzerland (Forbes)
Occupation	Businessman
Known for	Former chief executive and chairman of Holcim; honorary chairman since 2018
Education	ETH Zurich; IMD Lausanne (Holcim)

Swiss businessman; former chairman and honorary chairman of the cement group Holcim

Thomas Schmidheiny (born 17 December 1945) is a Swiss businessman whose fortune comes mainly from the cement and building materials group Holcim. He ran the company for more than two decades and was its chairman from 1984 to 2003.^[1]^[2] He left the board of LafargeHolcim in 2018 and was named honorary chairman, and Holcim said he would remain one of the group's main shareholders.^[2]^[3] On 11 November 2026 the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires list ranked Schmidheiny 351st in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$10.1 billion; Forbes lists the source of wealth as cement.^[1]^[4] In the annual World's Billionaires list published in 2026, Forbes had ranked Schmidheiny 289th, at US$11.1 billion.^[5]

Family business

The family business dates from 1912, though Forbes has named its founder differently over the years: as his grand-uncle "Ernt" in 2018 and 2024, and as his great-grandfather Jacob in 2026. Over time the family built an empire of bricks and cement. Forbes says his father, Max, divided the estate in 1984. Thomas received Holcim and his brother Stephan received the concrete supplier Eternit.^[1]

Holcim career

Holcim says Schmidheiny studied mechanical engineering at ETH Zurich and then took an MBA at IMD in Lausanne. He began his career in 1970 as technical director of Holcim Apasco cement.^[6] He joined the executive committee in 1976. Holcim's 2018 release says he was chief executive from 1978 to 2001, while its honorary chairmen page describes him as chair of the executive committee over the same years. He joined the board in 1978 and chaired it from 1984 until 2003.^[2]^[6] The company credited him with expanding into growth markets. It also called him instrumental in the 2015 merger of Holcim and Lafarge, which formed LafargeHolcim, at the time the world's largest cement maker.^[2] Forbes dates the merger to 2014.^[1]

After the merger he sat on the LafargeHolcim board from 2015. He did not stand for re-election at the annual general meeting of 8 May 2018 and was named honorary chairman.^[2]^[3] The honorary chairman may attend board meetings as a guest.^[6]

Lafarge Syria case

In October 2022 Lafarge SA and its Syrian subsidiary, Lafarge Cement Syria, pleaded guilty in the United States to conspiring to provide material support to ISIS and the al-Nusrah Front. The US Justice Department said this was its first corporate prosecution for material support of terrorism. The companies had paid the groups for permission to keep a cement plant running in Syria from 2013 to 2014, and the penalties totalled US$777.78 million.^[7] Holcim said the conduct involved former executives of Lafarge before Holcim acquired it. It said Holcim had never operated in Syria and that, as the Justice Department had noted, those executives hid the conduct from Holcim before and after the acquisition. Holcim first learned of the allegations from media reports in 2016.^[8] None of the sources links Schmidheiny personally to the conduct.

Wine and family

Forbes says Schmidheiny owns wineries in California, Argentina and Switzerland. His grandfather founded a vine-growers' co-operative, and his father began making wine on the family's estate at Heerbrugg when Thomas was a child. Forbes adds that one of his sons co-founded the Berlin-based film distributor DCM and that one of his daughters built a brewery in Latin America.^[1]

Wealth history

Forbes has included this entry in its annual World's Billionaires list in 26 of the editions from 2001 to 2026 checked for this profile, starting with 2001. The table gives the rank and estimated net worth in each annual list.^[5]^[1]

Forbes estimates by list year
Year	World's Billionaires rank	Net worth (US$ bn)
2001	179	2.6
2002	168	2.4
2003	209	1.9
2004	170	2.9
2005	144	3.8
2006	140	4.4
2007	142	5.5
2008	198	5.2
2009	234	2.7
2010	197	4.3
2011	219	4.8
2012	255	4.2
2013	219	5.5
2014	256	5.5
2015	271	5.5
2016	527	3.2
2017	348	4.7
2018	388	5.0
2019	436	4.4
2020	565	3.4
2021	589	4.8
2022	579	4.9
2023	445	5.7
2024	391	7.0
2025	361	8.4
2026	289	11.1

International and political links

This section uses the same ten headings for every profile in this series. Only specific, sourced actions are included; company-level and foundation-level actions are labelled as such. Where nothing was found, the entry reads "No documented involvement found in sources checked."