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The new Oerlikon pure-play organization went live in January 2025 with merged corporate and business functions and the transfer of the HRSflow business. Furthermore, key appointments for the new organization were made with our new Chief Operating Officer Dirk Linzmeier, Sumeet Gupta as Regional President APAC and Jane Cao as Key Country President China. The timing was right to kick-off the new Management Board – the top 15 leaders representing the Executive Committee, Operations, Regions and Functions. Over three days, this newly formed Management Board came together from April 7 to 9, 2025, in Switzerland with a clear ambition: to ignite the spark of collaboration between Regions, Product Lines, Materials and Functions, address bottlenecks and foster our corporate culture, driving growth and performance in our pure-play organization. Three focus topics At the workshop, the Management Board focused on three key topics: Shaping a new team: Change starts at the top and the Management Board will lead the change towards a company that rallies behind shared targets. In energizing sessions, the new team has started to take shape: the colleagues exchanged candid feedback to build trust and alignment on a professional and personal level. Optimized decision-making: The leaders took a critical look at how decision-making between global, product lines and regional levels can be optimized and accelerated. One concrete example was the agreement between Operations and the Regions to more effectively grow the Materials business in the regions. Improved ways of working: The Management Board committed to a team charter, with the goal to improve a culture of open communication, commitment and accountability. This will be rolled out to the entire organization in the near future What’s next The members of the Management Board made personal commitments to turn the outcomes of the workshop into concrete actions. One great example is that HRSflow volunteered to bring its leading expertise in operational excellence to other parts of Oerlikon, starting with Riri in Mendrisio The outcomes of the workshop will be shared with the wider Top Management team in May before we start rolling out the next steps across the organization. The journey of the new Management Board has started and the fire is lit – the team members were excited and confident that this is a great start to form a collaborative, committed team that is aligning behind one common goal: remove roadblocks to profitable growth and unleash the enormous potential of Oerlikon as a pure-play high-tech leader. | ||||||
The newly formed Management Board Within the new pure-play organization, this team will ensure fast and efficient collaboration across Regions, Product Lines and Functions and will join every second EC meeting. The newly formed Management Board consists of 15 members: Executive Chairman Michael Suess The EC members Dirk Linzmeier, Markus Richter and Anna Ryzhova Andrea Lai, President Global Operations CTO Sven Hicken The Regional Presidents David Franz, Jane Cao, Sumeet Gupta and Wolfgang Schmitz Katharina Rick, President Luxury Andrea Peruch, CEO HRSflow Function leaders Andreas Weiss, Marco Freidl and Thomas Schmidt Additionally invited as “wildcards” are Brett Rosenthal, Head of Portfolio Management, and Christoph Huber, Head of Group FP&A, Treasury & Tax. | ||||||