Hermann J. Stern
Economist and entrepreneur, since 2026 councilor of Zollikon. Since 2001 his Zurich firm Obermatt has indexed company performance for boards and investors.
1,894
CEOs ranked
52%
Swiss Pay Index market share
2023
OMSP1 listed on SIX
Vita
Pay for Performance
Hermann J. Stern wrote his doctorate on business ethics at the University of St. Gallen, under Peter Ulrich. Finance roles at Compaq, Swisscom, and UPAQ followed, then his own firm.
His conviction: a business result means nothing on its own. Measured against peers, with the market's weather stripped out, a number starts to say something about management. Swiss boards use this indexing to set executive pay. Retail investors use the same ranks to pick stocks. He lectures at the St. Gallen Board School and at INSEAD.
The through-line is fairness: pay for what was earned, not what markets handed out.
Milestones
1966: Born in Zürich
The fourth Hermann Stern in four generations. The first of them, his great-grandfather, built the Zugspitze cable car in Tyrol.
1996: Doctorate at St. Gallen
Business ethics under Peter Ulrich at the Institute for Business Ethics.
2001: Obermatt founded
Started on August 24 in Obermatt on Lake Lucerne, the hamlet the firm is named after. The idea: index business performance against peers.
2005: Performance Index
The first Obermatt product: business results indexed against peers, so boards see what management actually delivered.
2009: Pay Index
Executive pay tied to indexed performance: bonuses rise only when the company beats its peers.
2012: CEO of the Year
The method goes public: CEOs ranked by results against peers, not by reputation.
2015: Stock Rating
The same discipline, applied to stock picking for retail investors.
2020: Triple Bottom Line Index
Performance beyond the financials: people, planet, and profit, indexed.
2023: OMSP1 lists on SIX
The Obermatt Swiss Pearls index of the 36 top-ranked Swiss stocks becomes a traded product on SIX Swiss Exchange.
2026: Elected Councilor
Zollikon votes him onto its municipal council, where he heads Sicherheit und Umwelt — security and environment. The same year, his book Outperform appears.
Pay for Performance
Outperform
Earlier work
Marktorientiertes Value Management
Wiley-VCH, 2007 · ISBN 978-3-527-50258-5
Competitive advantage through the Finance Intelligence Radar: reading investor expectations and judging performance against the market. Financial Times Deutschland top ten. Reviewed in the NZZ.
Das Value Cockpit
Wiley-VCH, 2004 · ISBN 978-3-527-50299-8
Seven steps to value-based management, written for decision-makers. Financial Times Deutschland top ten.
Press
On the record
Featured in
- PUNKT
CEO of the Year
2011–22
His ranking of CEO performance ran for 12 years across 8 countries, judged on results against peers. The archive lives at the Obermatt Institute.
- The Economist
2012
"They really exist" — the underpaid-bosses piece, built on his case that a CEO's pay should follow earnings growth and shareholder returns.
- Financial Times
2011
Featured in Alison Smith's piece on how blue chips wrestle with the pay formula.
- NZZ
2005
Byline essay on financial leverage and the share price; the paper later reviewed his second book.
- BBC
2012
Interviewed on "More or Less" about what executive pay numbers actually measure.
- Harvard Businessmanager
Two articles: pay in family firms, and what executive compensation does to the share price.
Inside Paradeplatz
2016–19
Three years of columns for investors who decide for themselves.
Gemeinderat Zollikon
Results, now for the town.
In March 2026 Zollikon elected him to its municipal council in the first round, with 2,054 votes for the GLP. Since July he has led the Sicherheit und Umwelt department. After twenty years in the village, he says, it was time to give something back.
His program carries the professional discipline into local politics: transparent criteria for municipal projects and finances, and citizen participation drawn from his St. Gallen work on democratic governance. The Ressort itself spans security, traffic, the public baths, waste, and environmental protection.
Follow the Zollikon work- Office
- Gemeinderat, Zollikon
- Portfolio
- Sicherheit und Umwelt
- Party
- GLP, Green Liberal Party
- Term
- 2026–2030
Conviction
In an industry that is like a labyrinth designed to keep retail investors out, Obermatt makes investing in stocksaccessible, fair, and satisfying.
Stock investing
The Obermatt method is now a product.
The peer ranks that boards pay for are published for retail investors as well. From 2014 to 2023 he picked his own portfolio from the Top 10 lists and published every purchase; the Obermatt Institute, a Zurich non-profit, keeps the rankings and research open.
And since 2023 the entry point is a single purchase: the 36 best-ranked Swiss stocks, bundled in one listed index product.
