Ulf Mark Schneider became Nestlé's Chief Executive Officer in January 2017. He replaced Paul Bulcke. Before Nestle, he led the healthcare group Fresenius SE. He is the first outsider to run Nestlé since 1922.
Mark began his career in the late 1980s, he worked as a group finance director for Gehe UK plc. It is a pharmaceutical wholesale and retail distributor, in Coventry, England. He held several senior executive positions at Gehe's majority shareholder, Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH
In 2000 he was appointed as Chief Financial Officer at Gehe UK plc.
Within a year, he joined Fresenius Group and worked as Chief Financial Officer(CFO) at Fresenius Medical care from 2001 -2003.
In 2003, he was given a promotion and became Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Fresenius Group till 2016.
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Under Mark's leadership at Fresenius, the number of employees tripled, revenue quadrupled and net income increased twelvefold. While he held the position of CEO at Fresenius, he carried out several major strategic acquisitions: the private hospital chain HELIOS Kliniken; US dialysis provider Renal Care Group; US pharmaceutical company APP Pharmaceuticals; Liberty Dialysis, another major dialysis provider in the US; and, the purchase of 41 hospitals from Rhön-Klinikum, through which HELIOS became the largest private hospital operator in Germany.
In 2016, replacing Paul Bulcke, Mark Schneider was appointed as the CEO of Nestlé S.A. However, he started working as CEO of Nestle in January 2017.
After taking the charge as the company's CEO, he announced the intent to focus capital spending on higher-growth categories of coffee, pet food, baby food, and water and added consumer health to the list of priorities.
Schneider further divested U.S. confections and ice cream businesses in multibillion-dollar deals and led acquisitions of Atrium Health, Blue Bottle Coffee (majority stake), Sweet Earth Foods, Chameleon Cold-Brew, Tails.com, Freshly, and the Starbucks retail brand.
As the CEO of Nestle, Mark is actively engaged with the team in exploring healthy, delicious, and nutritious products and enjoys trying new samples himself.
He is also a member of the Board of Directors of Nestlé S.A., the World Economic Forum (WEF) Board of Trustees and its International Business Council, the European Round Table for Industry, and the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum.
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Born on 9 September 1965 Mark was born and raised in Neuwied, Germany. He graduated in Finance and Accounting and holds a doctorate in economics from the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. Mark also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Mark Schneider is married to German lawyer, economist, and professor Anne van Aaken.
