Klaus Johann Jacobs belongs to the commercial record as a figure whose ventures outlasted the conditions that produced them.
The record lists Klaus Johann Jacobs as Swiss businessman (1936-2008).
Klaus Johann Jacobs was born at Bremen in 1936. His recorded nationality is Switzerland. He was educated at Stanford University and University of Hamburg.
Post-war business was mass-market and increasingly multinational, managed by professionals rather than owners.
He worked as entrepreneur.
Commercial success is easy to measure and hard to interpret; timing and market do much of the work.
Recognition followed: Great Golden Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (1991), honorary doctorate of the University of Basel (2005) and Leibniz Medal (2008).
That the business was built from Switzerland shaped it: capital, regulation and market size differ by country, and they decide what is even attemptable.
Klaus Johann Jacobs died in 2008, aged 72. What remains is the enterprise and its consequences, which is the only durable measure of a commercial life.
Achievements
- Great Golden Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria — 1991
- honorary doctorate of the University of Basel — 2005
- Leibniz Medal — 2008
- Educated at Stanford University and University of Hamburg
