Róbert Wessman

Wessman was born in Reykjavík on 4th October 1969 to Wilhelm Wessman, a business person and Ólöf Svafarsdóttir Wessman, a beautician.[6] He grew up in Seltjarnarnes and moved to Mosfellsbær when he was six years old. He went to school at Menntaskólinn við Sund and received a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Iceland in 1993. After graduating, he worked for Samskip for seven years, first in the finance department, then in the sales department before finally serving as the CEO of the firm and moving to Germany.[7] During that time he also taught mathematics on a part time basis at the University of Iceland.[6]

In 1999, Wessman was appointed CEO of Delta, a generic drug manufacturer.[8] Following a merger with another Icelandic pharmaceutical company, Pharmaco, in 2002, Delta was rebranded as Actavis in 2004.[9][8] In 2008, Wessman stepped down from his position as CEO of Actavis.[10][11]

In 2009 Wessman founded the biotechnology company Alvogen, which is headquartered in Vatnsmýri in Reykjavík. The actual ownership of the company was somewhat unclear for around a decade's time. In 2018 Morgunblaðið published a report showing that one third of the Alvogen's share belonged to a private firm that Wessman had established on the offshore island of Jersey in 2015.[12]

In March 2021 Wessman had been said to have replaced a number of middle tier managers within a short period of time. Soon after such reshuffling, one of Wessman's former colleagues at Alvotech made serious allegations in which he criticized Wessman's governance and misconduct while accusing him for abusive and bullying behavior over a period of years.[13] In a statement to the Bloomberg, the concerned executive alleged that he has "personally experienced and witnessed numerous instances of inappropriate behavior by Wessman" from 2010 till his last day in the company.[14] Alvogen's board instructed to conduct an internal review and investigated Wessman's behavior and did not see any reason to take further action against him. In April 2021, Alvogen has sued the employee for alleged breach of confidentiality.[15] The allegations against Wessman also included making death threats to his former colleagues, as an SMS chat thread between Wessman and one of his colleagues revealed Wessman making the comment "You are dead I promise".[16] As such allegations came into the news, Alvogen's spokesperson apologised on Wessman’s behalf in June 2021.[17]