B. Braun made Anna Maria Braun its first female, sixth-generation CEO

B. Braun, the family-owned medical-technology company founded in 1839, announced in October 2018 that Anna Maria Braun, 39, would become chairwoman of its executive board on 1 April 2019 — the first woman and the first sixth-generation member to lead the company.

She succeeded Heinz-Walter Große, 65, who had been CEO for eight years and was retiring after 40 years with the firm; before him, Anna Maria's father Ludwig Georg Braun had run the company from 1977 to 2011, building it into a global group.

The new CEO had trained as a lawyer in Freiburg and Washington, worked two years at law firm CMS Hasche Sigle, then spent about ten years inside B. Braun, most recently on the board responsible for the Asia-Pacific region since April 2016.

The group employs close to 62,000 people and is fully family-owned, with about €6.8 billion in 2017 revenue; the appointment kept the CEO and CFO seats in the hands of two women, rare for a company of that scale.

A family-owned group with 62,000 employees and €6.8 billion of 2017 revenue handed its CEO seat to the sixth generation — a jurist with a decade inside the business.

A decade inside the group, including a regional board role, made the successor a known operator, not a dilettante.

The outgoing CEO's retirement was planned, so the handover happened on schedule.

Choosing the sixth generation restored the family's executive presence without an ownership dispute.

The fully family-owned structure meant the change needed no external approval beyond the supervisory board.

Choose the family successor on qualifications, not order of birth: B. Braun picked daughter Anna Maria after her brother left, and her Asia-Pacific board record made the choice credible.

Anna Maria Braun has led B. Braun since 2019, steering it through the pandemic and continued international expansion while keeping the group wholly family-owned; in 2024 she began handing board functions to outside executives while remaining CEO. The appointment is now a standard reference for female succession in German family firms.