Reinold Geiger (born 10 July 1947) is an Austrian

billionaire A billionaire is a person with a net worth of at least 1,000,000,000, one billion units of a given currency, usually of a major currency such as the United States dollar, euro, or pound sterling. It is a sub-category of the concept of the ultr ...

, and the chairman and executive director of French cosmetics retailer L'Occitane en Provence. On the 2023 ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine founded by B. C. Forbes in 1917. It has been owned by the Hong Kong–based investment group Integrated Whale Media Investments since 2014. Its chairman and editor-in-chief is Steve Forbes. The co ...

''list, he was the 9th richest Austrian with a net worth of US$ 1.4 billion.

Education and career

Geiger, the son of a carpenter, received a bachelor's degree in engineering from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, in 1969 and an MBA degree from

INSEAD INSEAD ( ; French: ''Institut européen d'administration des affaires'') is a non-profit business school with locations in Europe (Fontainebleau, France), Asia (Singapore), the Middle East (Abu Dhabi, UAE) and North America (San Francisco, USA ...

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau ( , , ) is a Communes of France, commune in the Functional area (France), metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the Kilometre zero#France, centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a Subprefectures in Franc ...

(France) in 1976. After graduating he founded several small companies, including a tourism company in

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. In 1978, Geiger founded the AMS Packaging Company in Paris, which specialized in the production of cosmetics packaging. He later sold the company at a profit. In 1994, Geiger started investing millions in the then small cosmetics company

L'Occitane L'Occitane en Provence (; ), commonly known as L'Occitane, is a French luxury retailer of body, face, hair and home products, as well as fragrances. Based in Manosque, France, it was founded in 1976 by Olivier Baussan with the purpose of creati ...

and took over the management. He expanded the company into a global group and it was listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange in May 2010. In 2021, he stepped down as CEO of L’Occitane but remained chairman and executive director of the company. Geiger owned 70 percent of the company in 2023. Forbes lists his net worth at USD 2.4 billion, as of February 2024.

Personal life

Geiger was married to Dominique Maze-Sencier until her death in May 2017. The couple had 3 sons, Maximilien, Nicolas and Adrien. Geiger lives in

Geneva Geneva ( , ; ) ; ; . is the List of cities in Switzerland, second-most populous city in Switzerland and the most populous in French-speaking Romandy. Situated in the southwest of the country, where the Rhône exits Lake Geneva, it is the ca ...

, Switzerland. He owns properties in the

alps The Alps () are some of the highest and most extensive mountain ranges in Europe, stretching approximately across eight Alpine countries (from west to east): Monaco, France, Switzerland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Germany, Austria and Slovenia. ...

, on the

Île de Ré Île de Ré (; variously spelled Rhé or Rhéa; Poitevin dialect, Poitevin: ''ile de Rét''; , ) is an island off the Atlantic coast of France near La Rochelle, Charente-Maritime, on the northern side of the Pertuis d'Antioche strait. Its high ...

and in Trancoso, Brazil.

References

1947 births Living people Austrian billionaires Austrian businesspeople Austrian expatriates in Switzerland ETH Zurich alumni Businesspeople from Geneva INSEAD alumni {{Austria-business-bio-stub