Else Kröner Award: Excellent ideas following the example of a great entrepreneur

How are the Fresenius Principles put into practice during our day-to-day work? To show this, we created the Else Kröner Award in 2024. The award recognizes outstanding, innovative and exceptional initiatives by our employees that go above and beyond their routine tasks – in line with our principles.

Else Kröner (1925–1988), after whom the award is named, was an entrepreneur and played a decisive role in shaping the history of Fresenius. She developed a small pharmaceutical company into the global healthcare company we know today as Fresenius. Her life and work stand for innovation, quality, and responsible, future-oriented action – a legacy that we continue to carry forward in the company today and honor with the award.

More than 180 teams submitted their projects in the first year. They ranged from in-house developed AI tools to increase the quality of treatment to process optimizations and contributions to environmental protection.

The award is presented in the five categories defined by our principles:

A graphic of the five presenius principles

This year’s winners were awarded by the Members of the Management Board at the Top Management Summit in Madrid.

This image shows a group photograph taken at the Else Kröner Award 2025 — Impressions of the award ceremony in Madrid

In the image, you can see three men standing side by side on a stage. The man in the center has an award plaque in front of him.

This is an image of three individuals. The woman in the center is holding an award and the man on the left is holding a microphone to the woman with the award. The woman on the right is smiling beside them.