Portrait of Hansjoerg Wyss

Rank #904

Hansjoerg Wyss

Net worth $4.7B

Medical devices · Switzerland

Born
Jan 01, 1935
Age
91
Source
Medical devices
Residence
Wilson, Wyoming
Citizenship
Switzerland
Marital status
Divorced
Children
1
Education
Master of Business Administration, Harvard University; Master of Science, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology

Net worth over time

Biography

  • Hansjoerg Wyss' fortune stems from his 2012 sale of medical device manufacturer Synthes, which he founded, to Johnson & Johnson for $20.2 billion.
  • He now holds stakes in publicly traded biotech company NovoCure and the Chelsea Football Club in the U.K.
  • One of the most philanthropic people in the world, Wyss also has charitable foundations with assets of over $2 billion. He is a signatory of the Giving Pledge by Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, which asks billionaires to commit to donating at least half of their fortunes to charity.
  • In 2022, he pledged $350 million to the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard, where he had already made pledges totaling $381 million since 2009.
  • In 2018, Wyss' foundation pledged $1 billion for conservation efforts over a decade. It upped its pledge to $1.5 billion in 2021.
  • In 2014, Wyss pledged $120 million to two universities, University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, to establish a center to accelerate medical breakthroughs.
  • Though he is a Swiss citizen, Wyss is a longtime Wyoming resident.

Financial assets

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