Stephan Schmidheiny believes in the potential people have and the momentum development can bring. In keeping with this conviction, he has personally supported many innovative people in realizing their visions.
Tate Modern – Art in the Industrial Wasteland
On a murky November day in the early 1990s, Lord Dennis Stevenson showed Stephan Schmidheiny a derelict power station on London's Bankside, and outlined the vision that he as Chairman of the Tate Gallery had developed together with its Director, Sir Nicholas Serota: the run-down area was to become home to a unique museum of modern art. Stephan Schmidheiny shared his enthusiasm, and was one of the first to support the project with a substantial donation, so laying the foundations for one of the most important cultural buildings in the UK.
The Tate Modern, which opened in 2000, now attracts five million visitors every year, making it the most popular museum of modern and contemporary art in the world. Stephan Schmidheiny also provided major support for the Switch House extension, which was opened in June 2016 and has virtually doubled the gallery space.
Securing Peace
While building up his industrial group in Latin America, Stephan Schmidheiny experienced at first hand how underdeveloped the continent was both politically and economically, and this despite its immense wealth of resources. Together with his friend, the Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, he began to systematically seek solutions to deliver sustainable social and economic development.
They placed particular emphasis on bringing an end to armed conflict. With Stephan Schmidheiny’s support, Hernando de Soto successfully negotiated a peace agreement in the 1990s between the Peruvian government and the rebel organisation Shining Path.
Since then, Stephan Schmidheiny has lent crucial support to various initiatives aimed at resolving armed conflict. At the start of the new millennium, he was involved in setting up the International Council on Security and Development. The organisation’s founder, Norine MacDonald QC, is committed to finding a lasting solution to the conflict in Afghanistan, addressing the interests of small farmers in particular.
In 2010, Stephan Schmidheiny was one of the initiators of the UK-based foundation Inter Mediate, which specialises in conflict mediation and now works successfully in countries such as Colombia, Turkey, Libya and Afghanistan.