Michael Sen

"“Growth, higher margins, more cash, lower debt – all this has created value.”"

— Michael Sen

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Overview

Michael Sen
Born	(1968-11-17) 17 November 1968 Korschenbroich, Lower Rhine, Germany
Citizenship	Germany
Education	Arnold-Gymnasium, Neustadt bei Coburg; corporate apprenticeship at Siemens high-voltage cable factory, Berlin
Alma mater	Technical University of Berlin (Diplom-Kaufmann in Business Administration)
Occupation	Business executive
Employer(s)	Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA
Known for	Turnaround and transformation work at Siemens, E.ON and Fresenius
Title	Chief executive officer
Term	1 October 2022 – present
Predecessor	Stephan Sturm
Board member of	Supervisory Board of Fresenius Medical Care; Executive Board of Deutsches Aktieninstitut; Advisory Council of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ); Board of Trustees of the American Academy in Berlin
Spouse	Name not publicly disclosed
Children	1 son

🏥 Michael Sen (born 17 November 1968) is a German business executive who has served since 2022 as chief executive officer (CEO) of Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA, one of Europe’s largest healthcare groups, and as chairman of the supervisory board of Fresenius Medical Care, a global dialysis provider. Previously he held senior roles at Siemens and E.ON, including chief financial officer (CFO) of Siemens Healthcare, CFO of E.ON during the creation of Uniper, and membership of the managing board (Vorstand) of Siemens AG, where he oversaw the healthcare, wind power and service businesses and helped prepare large-scale spin-offs and listings.

🌍 Career overview. Over more than three decades, Sen has become associated with complex corporate transformations in energy and healthcare, ranging from Siemens’s restructuring and the Siemens Healthineers flotation to E.ON’s split between its regulated and fossil fuel activities and, more recently, Fresenius’s portfolio reshaping under the “#FutureFresenius” programme. At Fresenius he has pursued a strategy of strategic simplification, emphasising hospital care and medicines while deconsolidating the dialysis business and divesting non-core activities, coupled with extensive cost savings and debt reduction that have been credited with restoring investor confidence.

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Early life and education

👶 Family background. Sen was born in Korschenbroich in Germany’s Lower Rhine region and grew up in Neustadt bei Coburg, Bavaria, in a middle-class household shaped by both engineering and education: his parents had emigrated from India, his father Drahti Sen working as an engineer at Siemens and his mother Nandita as a Montessori teacher. This intercultural setting, combining Indian roots with German schooling, is frequently cited as an influence on his later emphasis on internationalism and merit-based advancement in corporate life.

🎓 Schooling and dual formation. Sen attended the Arnold-Gymnasium in Neustadt bei Coburg, where he completed his Abitur and was active in sport, notably as a competitive tennis player, before choosing a path that combined vocational and academic training rather than moving directly into university study. In 1988 he began a Stammhauslehre, a corporate apprenticeship at Siemens’s high-voltage cable factory in Berlin, gaining practical exposure to industrial operations at the company that had employed his father, and from 1991 he studied business administration at the Technical University of Berlin with a focus on strategic management, industrial economics and corporate finance. During his studies he worked part-time at a Siemens gas turbine plant and undertook a stint in the United States, experiences that gave him early familiarity with both the factory floor and international business environments, before graduating in 1996 with the degree of Diplom-Kaufmann.

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Career

Early career at Siemens

🏭 Entry into Siemens. After completing his degree, Sen joined Siemens AG in 1996 in Munich, starting in corporate planning, development and finance, where he worked on portfolio analysis and strategic projects for the diversified engineering group. In the early 2000s he was involved in efforts to improve performance in the Siemens Mobile division and subsequently became CFO of the Solutions business unit and then of the Applications & Solutions division, roles that gave him responsibility for financial steering and restructuring in comparatively compact parts of the conglomerate. Colleagues from this period have described him as a detail-oriented manager who was comfortable combining technical understanding with financial discipline, a combination that later underpinned his work on much larger corporate transformations.

E.ON and the Uniper spin-off

⚡ Move into the energy sector. In mid-2015 Sen left Siemens to join E.ON, one of Germany’s major utilities, as chief financial officer at a time when the German energy market was being reshaped by the Energiewende and low wholesale power prices. He was brought in to help engineer a far-reaching split of E.ON’s business into a regulated, renewables-focused utility and a separate vehicle for conventional power generation and energy trading.

🔌 Creating Uniper and restructuring the balance sheet. As CFO, Sen oversaw the complex spin-off of E.ON’s fossil-fuel and trading activities into Uniper, a process that involved asset impairments of around €10 billion and the redesign of capital structures for both the remaining E.ON and the new company. The separation, completed in 2016, aimed to isolate legacy coal and gas operations from the growth-oriented network and renewables businesses, and Sen’s work on write-downs, de-risking and financing was later highlighted by observers as central to stabilising E.ON during a turbulent phase in European power markets.

Return to Siemens and Siemens Healthineers IPO

🔬 CFO of Siemens Healthcare. Before his move to E.ON, Sen had already built a profile in healthcare as CFO of Siemens’s Healthcare sector, a role he held from 2008 to 2015 overseeing finances for the company’s global medical technology operations based in Erlangen. In that position he worked on cost discipline and portfolio expansion and is credited with helping to prepare the business organisationally and financially for greater autonomy, laying groundwork for what would later become Siemens Healthineers.

📈 Managing board responsibilities and spin-off work. In late 2016 Siemens invited Sen back, and he joined the managing board of Siemens AG in April 2017 with responsibility for the healthcare business, the wind power activities centred on Siemens Gamesa and the Global Services unit. Drawing on his earlier CFO experience, he played a key role in steering Siemens Healthineers to a separate listing on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange in March 2018, an initial public offering that raised several billion euros and was widely seen as unlocking value while granting the medical technology arm greater strategic flexibility. At the same time he chaired the board of Siemens Gamesa during a period of international expansion in wind power, adding experience in another capital-intensive, technology-driven industry.

Gas and Power division and departure from Siemens

🚪 Preparing Siemens Energy. In 2019 Sen took on a further transformation assignment inside Siemens when he was appointed to lead the Gas & Power division and to prepare it for spin-off as an independently listed company under the Siemens Energy name. The mandate echoed his earlier work at E.ON and Healthineers: carve out a complex portfolio of assets, give the business its own governance structure and capital base, and position it for life outside the parent conglomerate.

⚖️ Strategic disagreement and exit. In March 2020 Siemens announced that Sen and his division’s CFO, Klaus Patzak, would leave the company “by mutual agreement” shortly before the planned Siemens Energy IPO, a move that prompted speculation about internal disagreements. Subsequent reporting indicated that Sen had raised concerns that the new company would be burdened with too many low-margin or loss-making activities, high costs and debt, while Siemens AG intended to retain a minority stake, leading to tensions over the initial balance sheet and risk allocation. Analysts later noted that some of the structural challenges he had reportedly highlighted did indeed weigh on Siemens Energy’s early performance after the spin-off, and the episode has often been portrayed as an instance of a senior executive choosing to leave rather than endorse a financial structure he regarded as unsustainable.

Fresenius Kabi and move to group leadership

💊 Joining Fresenius Kabi. After a brief period outside executive office, Sen returned to the healthcare sector in April 2021 when he was appointed CEO of Fresenius Kabi, the intravenous drugs, clinical nutrition and biosimilars division of Fresenius SE. He took over at a time when Kabi faced pricing pressure and strategic questions and signalled that he would combine a strong patient-centric narrative with portfolio upgrades, including greater emphasis on biopharmaceuticals and medical technology devices.

🏛️ Becoming CEO of Fresenius SE. On 22 August 2022 Fresenius announced that Sen would succeed Stephan Sturm as CEO of the parent company with effect from 1 October 2022, placing him in charge of a healthcare group spanning hospital operations (Helios), pharmaceuticals and medical technology (Kabi), project services (Vamed) and a large stake in Fresenius Medical Care. He assumed the role amid years of share-price weakness and operational challenges, while an activist investor, Elliott Management, had reportedly built a significant position in the stock and was pressing for strategic changes.

CEO of Fresenius SE and #FutureFresenius

🚀 Strategic reset and #FutureFresenius. Shortly after taking office, Sen described his agenda as a “reset” for Fresenius, arguing on early earnings calls that the group needed to improve performance, sharpen its portfolio and move faster in decision-making. He launched a comprehensive review of all business segments and introduced a transformation programme branded “#FutureFresenius”, focused on simplifying the organisation, prioritising capital allocation to Kabi and Helios, and raising profitability and cash generation. His public statements stressed that “the focus is on returns” and that execution discipline rather than grand acquisitions would define the next phase for the company.

🧩 Portfolio reshaping and deconsolidation of Fresenius Medical Care. Under Sen’s leadership, Fresenius deconsolidated its dialysis arm Fresenius Medical Care, moving from full consolidation to an equity-accounted minority stake and later reducing that stake further, a step intended to reduce earnings volatility and balance-sheet exposure to a business that had suffered from pandemic-related pressures and staffing shortages, particularly in the United States. He also pushed ahead with divesting or downsizing activities considered non-core, including the sale of a majority stake in the services subsidiary Vamed, in order to concentrate resources on hospital care and pharmaceuticals.

📊 Operational improvements and market response. Sen’s programme has included a broad cost-savings initiative, with Fresenius reporting that it had already achieved around €400 million in annual EBIT-level savings by the third quarter of 2024, ahead of earlier targets, through reductions in overhead, procurement efficiencies and process optimisation. Organic revenue growth accelerated into the mid-single digits, while leverage fell to its lowest level in several years and profitability recovered, leading the company to raise its earnings guidance more than once. From the start of his tenure as CEO in October 2022 to early 2025, Fresenius’s share price rose markedly, outperforming the STOXX Europe 600 Health Care index and signalling renewed investor confidence in the group’s strategic direction.

🩺 Role at Fresenius Medical Care and innovation focus. By convention, the Fresenius CEO also chairs the supervisory board of Fresenius Medical Care, giving Sen a direct role in overseeing that company’s own turnaround plan, which has included restructuring U.S. clinics, addressing staff shortages and repositioning its service model. In parallel, he has championed investments in new therapies and technologies within Fresenius Kabi, backing a pipeline of biosimilar medicines and medical devices and linking innovation in products to the group’s stated commitment to “health equity” and improved patient access worldwide.

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Financials and wealth

💶 CEO compensation. As CEO of a DAX 40 company, Sen earns a substantial salary, but his remuneration at Fresenius has been described as modest by the standards of his peer group. In 2023, his first full year as group CEO, his total compensation amounted to just over €1.7 million, placing him at the lower end of the DAX CEO pay scale and reflecting a remuneration policy that tied a significant share of his income to turnaround benchmarks and restrained top-management bonuses after a period of underperformance and suspended dividends. His base salary is reported to be around €1 million, with the remainder consisting mainly of variable incentives contingent on financial and strategic targets.

💼 Net worth and shareholdings. Sen is a career executive rather than a company founder, and publicly available disclosures indicate that he holds only a small personal stake in Fresenius, consisting of a few thousand shares acquired through management incentive schemes, representing well below 0.1 per cent of the company’s equity. His wealth is therefore derived principally from accumulated salaries and bonuses earned over senior positions at Siemens, E.ON and Fresenius, and while observers estimate that he is a multi-millionaire, he has not appeared on major rich lists or been portrayed as an entrepreneur-tycoon.

🧾 Other financial interests. Beyond his Fresenius roles, Sen has relatively few external mandates that carry significant remuneration, reflecting the time demands of a group-wide transformation. He sits on the executive board of Deutsches Aktieninstitut, an advocacy body for German capital markets, and on the advisory council of the German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ), as well as the board of trustees of the American Academy in Berlin, where he contributes business perspectives to discussions on policy, research and transatlantic relations. These functions are typically unpaid or only modestly compensated and are generally considered part of his broader engagement with governance and societal issues rather than major sources of personal income.

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Personal life

👨‍👩‍👦 Family and privacy. Despite his high-profile executive roles, Sen is regarded as a comparatively private individual. Public sources indicate that he is married and has one son, and he has generally kept his family out of the media spotlight, occasionally alluding to the importance he places on family life and education but avoiding detailed discussion of his home life in interviews. Colleagues have observed that he prioritises returning home from business travel when possible in order to maintain a degree of normality despite a demanding schedule.

🎾 Interests and character. Sen is described as combining an analytical temperament with a down-to-earth manner, and his leisure interests reflect both a competitive instinct and an affinity for culture. A former competitive tennis player in his youth, he has remained enthusiastic about sport, occasionally appearing at charity tennis events and taking early-morning runs while travelling, and he is also known to enjoy golf as a more informal pastime. In contrast to these physical activities, he has an interest in classical music and has spoken about attending orchestral performances in Berlin and Munich as a way of unwinding and gaining perspective outside the corporate environment.

📓 Management style. Accounts from colleagues and media profiles depict Sen as a leader who is both detail-oriented and approachable. He is reputed to prepare meticulously for meetings, bringing a strong command of figures and scenarios, while at the same time encouraging debate and critique of proposals, including his own. The manner of his departure from Siemens in 2020, after he raised concerns about the balance-sheet structure of the planned Siemens Energy spin-off, has often been cited as illustrative of a management style that combines pragmatism with a willingness to draw clear lines on financial risk and governance questions.

🌐 Values and international outlook. With Indian heritage and German roots, Sen is frequently noted as one of the relatively few DAX chief executives of migrant descent, and he has been involved in mentoring initiatives for younger professionals, emphasising the importance of education, international experience and openness to change. In public remarks he has highlighted “health equity” and fair access to care as guiding themes for Fresenius and has linked the group’s innovation and restructuring efforts to a broader objective of supporting patients and health systems worldwide.

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Controversies and challenges

⚖️ Siemens Energy dispute. The episode that has generated the most intense scrutiny in Sen’s career is his exit from Siemens in 2020. Officially framed as a mutual decision, it followed disagreements over the proposed structure of the Siemens Energy spin-off, with multiple reports suggesting that Sen and CFO Klaus Patzak objected to what they saw as an excessive burden of low-margin businesses, legacy risks and debt being placed on the new company. Commentators have since juxtaposed his reservations with Siemens Energy’s later challenges, arguing that his concerns about thin margins and exposure to legacy assets were at least partly borne out by events, though the company and Sen have refrained from detailed public commentary on the internal deliberations.

📣 Engaging with activist investors. When Sen took over at Fresenius, the company was under pressure from activist investor Elliott Management, which had built a substantial stake and was reportedly advocating for portfolio streamlining and improved returns. Rather than confront the investor in a public dispute, Sen embraced many of the themes typically associated with activist campaigns—sharper focus, divestments, stronger cash generation—and embedded them in the #FutureFresenius programme, a strategy that has been credited with easing tensions and avoiding an escalated proxy conflict while still delivering structural changes sought by the market.

🏗️ Restructuring sensitivities at Fresenius Medical Care. The restructuring of Fresenius Medical Care under Sen’s overall oversight has included clinic closures and consolidations in some regions, particularly in the United States, as the dialysis provider reacted to higher costs, staff shortages and changing regulatory conditions. These measures have at times been criticised by unions and local stakeholders concerned about employment and access to dialysis services, but Fresenius and FMC have argued that the changes are necessary to restore sustainable profitability and enable continued investment in care quality and innovation.

📉 Ongoing risks and expectations. Analysts generally view the early results of Sen’s turnaround at Fresenius positively but note that the group remains exposed to broader healthcare risks such as regulatory reforms, cost inflation and demographic pressures, as well as execution risks associated with simultaneous change initiatives across several divisions. Commentators have pointed out that his decision to “spend political capital early” by pushing through deconsolidations, asset sales and cost measures creates expectations that the resulting streamlined Fresenius will be more resilient, but also leaves less room for mis-steps should future shocks occur.

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Other activities and public profile

🧭 Diversity and role-model status. Sen’s ascent from the son of Indian immigrants to the helm of a leading German multinational has been cited in business media and academic settings as an example of increasing diversity in the upper ranks of German corporate leadership. Although he tends to downplay his background in favour of emphasising results and performance, he has participated in mentoring programmes and university events aimed at encouraging students and young professionals from diverse backgrounds to pursue careers in management.

🎤 Public engagements and thought leadership. Alongside his executive responsibilities, Sen participates in conferences and forums that address the intersection of business, healthcare and technology, including events organised under the Tech Europe and Handelsblatt umbrellas and programmes of the American Academy in Berlin. In these settings he has spoken on themes such as the digitalisation of healthcare, the role of public–private partnerships in medical innovation and the need for robust capital markets to finance long-term transformation in regulated industries.

🧠 Communication style. Media profiles have characterised Sen as avoiding the “celebrity CEO” approach and instead favouring structured, explanatory communication, sometimes described as the work of a “chief explanation officer”. He rarely uses social media for personal commentary, preferring formal channels such as shareholder letters, interviews and town-hall meetings to outline strategic decisions and their rationale to employees and investors.

⏳ Perspective and legacy. Anecdotes recounted by colleagues underline Sen’s interest in corporate history and long-term continuity, including reports that he has kept older company reports to remind himself of cyclical patterns and legacies when working on IPOs and spin-offs. At Fresenius he has framed the #FutureFresenius initiative as a contribution to building the next chapter of an enterprise whose roots stretch back more than a century, positioning his tenure as part of an ongoing story of adaptation in healthcare rather than a short-term restructuring exercise.

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