Swiss industrial process automation specialist Endress+Hauser is adding a COO post and has named a new CIO and logistics chief as part of an executive board expansion it hopes will guide the company through the tricky business of growing in a slowing economy.
The moves follow the retirement of longtime CIO and Production Chief Dieter Schaudel, 65, who stepped aside from the maker of sensors and measuring instruments on June 30.
The new appointments are geared “to meet the needs of our expanding company,” CEO Klaus Endress said in a statement, following a year in which sales grew 13% to €1.1 billion. They are also designed to counterbalance rising materials prices, a weak dollar, and turbulent financial markets — which CEO Endress said will keep growth to 8% in the coming fiscal year.
“The tasks and responsibilities on the executive board will be spread over more shoulders,” Endress said. “In doing so, all the functions and processes in the company should be well-represented.”
The family-owned, Reinach, Switzerland-based company will double its executive board from four members to eight and has promoted Michael Ziesemer to the new COO role, effective July 1. Ziesemer retains his executive board responsibility for sales and marketing, but picks up additional duties as deputy to CEO Endress.
The company has also reached into the pharmaceutical industry to hire Pieter de Koning from an undisclosed Swiss company to take over Schaudel’s CIO role, which includes information technology as well as logistics and organization. De Koning will also have oversight of the company’s commercial IT services. He joins the executive board but will not assume Schaudel’s responsibility as head of production centers. The company is searching for a separate individual to take on that role, which Endress+Hauser calls chief technical officer.
Other new executive board members come from within the company. Sales center coordinator Nikolaus Kruger joins the board with sales and marketing responsibility, which he will share with COO Ziesemer. Roland Kienzler, corporate director of human resources, and legal counsel Heiner Zehntner also join the executive board.
All new executive board members will assume their roles Sept. 1, when the company’s supervisory board officially appoints them. The continuing executive board members are CEO Endress, COO Ziesemer, as well as CFO Fernando Fuenzalida, whose job is unchanged. The new members, effective Sept. 1, will be de Koning, Kruger, Kienzler, Zehntner, and the yet-to-be-named new CTO, or production chief.
CEO Endress “will place a high priority on supporting the company’s production centers,” the company said in a press release. Last month, in reporting Endress+Hauser’s 13% sales increase, Endress noted that the company’s expanded production was running at capacity and was challenged by a dearth of engineers and IT specialists.
The company’s products and services measure flow, temperature, pressure, and levels, and provide liquid analysis and data acquisition functions.