Helmut Maucher

Helmut Oswald Maucher (born 9 December 1927) is a German businessman. He served as the CEO of Nestlé from June 1990 to June 1997. He joined the company at a young age, completing an apprenticeship at the Nestlé SA factory in Eisenharz, Germany just after finishing high school. He serves as honorary chairman of Nestlé SA, Vevey, Switzerland, having been elected to that position by the board after relinquishing its chairmanship in May 2000.

Helmut Maucher was born on 9 December 1927 in Eisenharz (Allgäu), Germany. When he was 19 Nestlé AG bought the milk production company in Eisenharz in the Western Allgau in which he and his father were employed. After finishing his A levels he was then doing a business apprenticeship in the same company. He then changed to Nestlé Frankfurt, where he was studying business administration at university while working and finished his study with a Master in Business/Commerce.

Between 1964 and 1980 he occupied different management positions at Nestlé Frankfurt, in 1975 he became General Director of the Nestlé Group Germany. On 1 October 1980 he was asked to change to Switzerland to become General Director of the whole Nestlé Group and member of the executive committee.

In November 1981 he became delegate of the supervisory administration board of Nestlé AG in Vevey. Between 1990 and 1997 he was both, president and delegate of the supervisory administration board. In this time he expanded the company to the largest food company worldwide with 260,000 employees. After stepping down from his position as delegate in 1997 he continued to be president of the supervisory administration board until 2000 which is when he was given the position of honorary president. He was the first non-Swiss ever to be given such an honour and position in a major Swiss company.

In a 1997 interview, Maucher stated: "There is a certain percentage of prosperity waste (German: Wohlstandsmüll) in our society; people who are either unmotivated, semi-invalid, tired or who just take advantage of the system." Maucher was alluding to the highly developed German welfare system, which in his opinion removed the necessity to take an employment. He was subsequently criticized for the usage of the term "waste" as a description for human beings, which culminated in Wohlstandsmüll having been chosen as the German Un-Word of the Year 1997 by a jury of linguistic scholars.

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