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Philipp Braun
President and CEO
As a small boy, Philipp Braun spent a lot of time on his grandparents' farm in the majestic Swiss mountains. His grandparents lived a simple life-no electricity, no hot water, no telephone. They grew their own food. They made butter and cheese from milk, preserved fruits and vegetables to last them through the long winters, produced fruit juices, smoke-dried their meat, baked their breads and cakes, even made caramel candies. "It was wonderful," remembers Mr. Braun. "Whatever they made was plain, but of the highest quality." He relished the family meals. "Everything revolved around the production of food," he recalls. "I have never been able to extricate myself from it."
It was no surprise therefore that Mr. Braun ended up in the food business. "With my love of food and wine, I could have become a chef, too," he says. Instead, he got a master's degree in food technology from Zürich's prestigious Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, followed by an MBA from the Graduate School of Business Administration. But theory was not his thing. Even before he finished school, Mr. Braun founded his own company, Ensytec, together with a schoolmate. The day after his final exams were done, he visited clients in the Swiss food industry, counseling them on optimizing operations and profits. "If you like to work a lot," Mr. Braun notes, "you want to do what is most satisfying and where you are most appreciated. As an independent business consultant, you can test your ideas."
Ultimately, though, Mr. Braun’s goal was to run a company. "I wanted to do something real," he states. In 1998, when Albert Uster became chairman of the board, he asked Mr. Braun to take over as chief executive officer of his company. In the years since, Mr. Braun has enhanced Albert Uster Imports’ strong foundation of quality products and service. He’s added both IcEscape, (frozen desserts and breakfast pastries) and Savoir Fare (savory products such as caviar, oils and vinegars) to the company’s topnotch sweet business and, as a result, strategically positioned it to excel in the 21st century.
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