Hans-Peter Wild

"Until I met Hans-Peter Wild a few years ago through my friend Theo Müller (both live in Switzerland and are multiple billionaires)"

""Only those who think big achieve big goals. For Wild, thinking big primarily means thinking globally. In the early 1960s, the company was still heavily focused on the German market. But early on, Hans-Peter Wild decided to expand worldwide. He conquered one country after the other. In 1994, in cooperation with Kraft General Food, Capri-Sun also gained market leadership in the United States for flexibly packaged fruit-containing drinks. "Thus, a quarter of a century after production started in Heidelberg, the otherwise usual path in the beverage market had been accomplished in reverse. The surprise was perfect: A refreshing drink from Germany had conquered the American market.""

"The economist Joseph Schumpeter characterized the psychology of the entrepreneur with these words: The one who wants to do something "new and unfamiliar" not only has to expect external resistance, "but also has to overcome such within themselves". The type of entrepreneur described by Schumpeter swims "against the current". "The fact that something has not been done yet, he does not perceive as a counter-reason. He does not feel those inhibitions that otherwise form firm barriers to the behavior of economic subjects.""

""After all, my goal was from the beginning to make Capri-Sun and WILD-Flavors global players. You have to set goals and not lose sight of them, despite any unforeseen difficulties along the way.""

"Winners live in the future. Every entrepreneur must be future-oriented. But the direction he takes, and the measure of his success, depend not least on the size of his goals. Wild writes that he actually lives in the future: "My thinking, my commitment, my investments had and have distant goals in sight. These are concrete goals that are supposed to make our future safer both in the company itself and beyond.""

"A core sentence from the famous book by Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, reads: "Every failure carries the seed of an even greater success for those who are convinced of themselves and their goal and do not give up their efforts!""

"What drives entrepreneurs like Wild on? I have identified this in my book because once an entrepreneur is satisfied with what he has achieved, he stops wanting to become better. Set bigger goals! I referred to this with the term "productive dissatisfaction". Wild calls it "constant dissatisfaction", "when an entrepreneur is not satisfied with what has been achieved, but is always in search of new challenges"."

"to turn disadvantages into advantages. For example, there were no suitable filling machines for Capri-Sun drink pouches. And there was also no machine builder who could manufacture such a device. Others would have been deterred by this. Wild became a machine builder himself and thus secured an advantage, because no one could easily copy his idea, because they lacked the machines."

"In scientific studies and in online publications, one comes across the note that nine out of ten of the world's wealthiest people have gained their status through the establishment and development of their own businesses. I do not belong to these top ten. I did not found the company. Nonetheless, I acquired my wealth through my work and the management of my companies in the league of world corporations. I was fortunate, in 1974, to join a small, but innovative operation my parents had established, which under my leadership became the basis for two globally operating companies: Capri-Sun and WILD Flavors."

"I, a native of Heidelberg, left Germany over three decades ago. Since then, I have been living in Switzerland and have since obtained Swiss citizenship. I appreciate this innovation-friendly country, which (despite cantonal differences) is overall less bureaucratized than Germany and has given me the opportunity to be entrepreneurial worldwide from the start. In a way, I didn't emigrate, but returned to the country from which I came from family-wise. But more on that later."

"The future orientation of my entrepreneurial thinking and commitment is reflected in the explanations about the history and development of my two companies. Remarks about my funding activities and investments in different areas such as sports, art and especially in scientific research should round off my autobiography."

"I want to show that the feature "all natural" has defined my life and the company from the beginning and for over 90 years, as both a guiding theme and practiced science. Under my leadership, the WILD factories founded by my father have developed into an internationally leading producer of purely natural raw materials for the entire food and beverage industry."

""Capri-Sonne", which is now offered worldwide under the name "Capri-Sun", is originally a WILD product that quickly became a branded drink after its introduction. It has been led by me to a global position among the refreshing drinks."

"The life of a person, an entrepreneur, even when he has made it to a global conglomerate, is not a continuous success story. Of course, over the years and decades, there are misjudgments, mishaps, setbacks. I too have made mistakes. However, my attitude in such situations was and always is the same: You can learn at least as much from defeats as from successes - and sometimes even more."

"Switzerland, which I have known since my youth, is among the countries whose mentalities and lifestyles have particularly appealed to me. The long past familial origin was unknown to me and certainly not decisive for my decision to make the country my private and entrepreneurial focal point in the early 1990s. But the origin and what is passed on in family life in terms of traditions and lifestyle, some of it perhaps unconsciously in my case, are more formative than we often suspect. Perhaps the hidden Swiss roots have shaped my life path more than I have perceived myself, and my holistic thinking in the larger dimensions, the "big picture thinking" as the Anglo-Saxons call it, has been decisive. I did not emigrate to Switzerland, but in a sense I returned home."

"As children, we conducted a kind of decathlon, the disciplines of which became increasingly demanding over the years. It started with swimming, running, jumping, table tennis, badminton, and the like, and over time, these turned into whole weekends where we competed in various disciplines. The lawn in our beautiful garden was surrounded by tall trees that were planted four years before my birth, right after my parents had purchased the former glass factory on the new company site. Trees that grew and became large with me."

"Although I did not want to join the company myself back then, I experienced decisive influences for business life in my childhood and youth. Because ultimately, all aspects of the company's activities were discussed in the parental home. Whether at breakfast, lunch, or dinner, business was often at the table, because my father and mother were constantly dealing with topics and expectations from the company on weekdays. The residential building and production facilities formed, so to speak, a unity. My brother and I listened to the conversations, followed decisions, and tried to understand business strategies. Surely, we did not yet comprehend many topics in their full scope. But operational procedures and entrepreneurial questions were already familiar to me at a fairly young age. I found some topics much more interesting than my school homework."

"We didn't have to be afraid, the GIs were especially friendly to us children. I was more concerned with the question of whether the Easter Bunny would find its way to our garden in these turbulent days? My mother had secretly made pretty Easter nests, but she couldn't find any sweets anywhere. Some GIs watched her and quickly understood her situation. It wasn't long before the American soldiers had brought her sweets from their supplies and made sure that the mother could give her children a beautiful Easter. The grass and deciduous trees shone in the spring green during April weather. I hopped and ran through the large garden and was happy to discover colorful Easter nests with chocolate and other treats. The GIs watched me smoking and applauded loudly when I found something again. They shared my childlike joy."

"He always had the big goals and some visions in mind. He preferred to devote his time to new challenges rather than the rather lengthy implementation of his ideas in the company. My mother's special strengths, on the other hand, were her consistency and persistence. She paid attention to details in the business process and took a lot of time for the employees and their questions, worries and needs. In her, my father had found an ideal partner."

"Hans-Peter Wild that he was and always is open to new, to experimental things. Starting something creatively significant about every five years, without neglecting experience, this attitude has significantly contributed to him being able to establish and expand his two globally active corporations. First, he managed to conquer the world markets with Capri-Sun, then with his second company WILD Flavors."

""Do good without talking much about it," was the primal philosophy of my parents with which I grew up and which I still follow today."

"He became exemplary for my entire career. Furthermore, he also was a universally respected person outside the family circle, who, not least, has created the foundation of a fascinating corporate culture full of innovative power in Eppelheim."

""I dreamed that life was beautiful; I woke up and saw that life was work; I worked and found that life is joy!" Mother meant by this, and it coincides with my view, that young people should explore what they really like to do. Only then does the profession also bring joy. If you approach professional work with fun, you are much more likely to be successful."