Peter Löscher is an Austrian manager and former president, Global Human Health at global pharmaceutical company Merck & Co. He was appointed chief executive officer of Siemens on 20 May 2007 as the successor of Klaus Kleinfeld, and was selected to take on the new position on 1 July 2007. As of 2017, Löscher remains as the only CEO to be hired from outside the conglomerate in the 170-year history of Siemens.
From 1988 until 2000 he worked for the German pharmaceutical company Hoechst in Spain, Japan, Great Britain and the United States. After Hoechst merged with Rhone-Poulenc he stayed at Aventis until 2002. He then joined Amersham, which was taken over by General Electric. In 2006 he became a member of the executive board of the US pharmaceutical company Merck. Löscher became the first CEO of Siemens AG to be appointed from outside the company in 2007. Under Löscher, Siemens spun off its Osram lighting unit and sold its half of a joint venture with Nokia that supplied equipment for mobile telecommunication networks. In 2012, he earned 8.7 million euros. In late 2012, he initiated efforts to save 6 billion euros over the following two years. In his capacity as CEO, he accompanied ChancellorAngela Merkel on various state visits, including to China in 2012. Following a series of missteps under his leadership, including a late delivery of high-speed ICE trains for German national railroad Deutsche Bahn and delays in completing offshore wind turbine projects, he was replaced by Joe Kaeser as CEO and left Siemens in July 2013, four years before the end of his contract. Under the terms of his pay-off of 17 million euros from Siemens, Löscher was obliged not to work for a “significant competitor” of the company until September 2015. In 2014, he was hired by Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg to serve as chief executive of Renova Management, which oversees his international industrial holdings, including stakes in Sulzer and in Oerlikon. He left Renova in 2016, amid disagreements with Vekselberg. In Munich, Löscher shares an office with Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Paul Achleitner, Michael Diekmann and Joachim Faber.
Löscher speaks German, English, French, Spanish, and Japanese. He and his Spanish-born wife have three children. According to an interview in the New York Times, Löscher was the captain of the volleyball team at high school and college.
