Supervisory Board Appoints Hans Juergen Kalmbach Chairman of the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group; Thorsten Klapproth leaves company after successful expansion
Effective August 1, 2018 Hans Juergen Kalmbach (43) will become the new Chairman of the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group; Reinhard Mayer (50) has been appointed Deputy Chairman. Kalmbach succeeds Thorsten Klapproth (56), who, after four years of successful business expansion, will turn over his position as CEO.
Thorsten Klapproth has been Chairman of the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group for four years. During his tenure, the company has grown significantly, most recently exceeding the 1 billion Euros in revenue in 2016. He successfully steered the transition phase to a process-controlled organization, which allowed the members of the company’s founding family Hans Grohe to retire from the operative side of business. In the realm of the growth strategy, which Klapproth initiated, he prepared the organization for the challenges of digitalization and, at the same time, strengthened the global competitive ability and overall profitability considerably. Under his leadership, the core identities of the company’s brands AXOR and hansgrohe have been reinforced and focused on end consumers. With the founding of the Hansgrohe Campus, the organization’s in-house university, Klapproth laid the foundation to strengthen and develop the talent base within the Hansgrohe Group.
“Thorsten Klapproth has made a considerable contribution to the successful expansion of Hansgrohe over the past years. Under his leadership, the Hansgrohe Group grew into a new dimension and became a truly global organization. I would like to thank him for his service, not only personally, but also on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board”, said Klaus F. Jaenecke, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hansgrohe.
Jaenecke continues: “It is now the right time to hand over to a new leadership generation, which will build on the strong foundation created over the past years. We have deliberately strengthened the sales functions of the Hansgrohe Group to further improve customer centricity as Hansgrohe expands globally. Hans Juergen Kalmbach has been one of the drivers of this change, and I am very pleased that he has agreed to lead the organization as its new CEO. He will continue to develop and implement the successful growth strategy for the benefit of our customers, employees and other stakeholders. The fact that we are able to recruit the new CEO from inside our organization is a clear sign for the breadth of leadership talent across the Hansgrohe Group.”
Hans Juergen Kalmbach is a Black Forest native, born in 1974 in the city of Freudenstadt, close to the Hansgrohe Group Headquarters in Schiltach, Germany. He is currently an Executive Board Member, responsible for International Sales. After starting his career within the Hansgrohe Group in 1998, Hans Juergen Kalmbach held various leadership positions in Germany and abroad. From 2010 to 2014, he was responsible for the international business of the Delta Faucet Company – a subsidiary of the Hansgrohe Group’s majority shareholder, Masco Corp. He then returned to the Hansgrohe Group headquarters in Germany and assumed responsibility for the Sales Divisions Northern and Western Europe. In addition, he also led the Corporate Business Development. He took over the Sales Division Asia Pacific in 2015 and the Global Projects Division. Kalmbach holds a degree in Business Administration.
Next to Kalmbach, the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group continues to consist of Christophe Gourlan (45), Frank Schnatz (44), Frank Semling (50) and Reinhard Mayer (50). Mayer will take on additional responsibilities as of August 1, 2018 in his new role as Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board.
“I appreciate the instilled trust in my abilities and I very much look forward to working together and mastering the tasks that lie ahead of us. Our customers and their needs have coined my career at Hansgrohe over the last 20 years, and they have made our success story possible. We will continue to focus on our customers and practice customer orientation successfully. Together with our motivated and engaged team of employees, we will advance the success story of the Hansgrohe Group”, said Hans Juergen Kalmbach.
About the Hansgrohe Group – the Original from the Black Forest
With its brands AXOR and hansgrohe, the Hansgrohe Group, based in Schiltach/Southern Germany, enjoys a reputation as a leader in innovation, quality and design within the bath and kitchen industry. The Hansgrohe Group brings form and function to water with taps, showerheads and shower systems. The 117-year history of the company is marked by innovations such as the first hand-held shower with multiple spray types, the first pull-out kitchen tap, and the first wall bar to hold a hand-held shower. The company holds more than 16,000 active property rights. The Hansgrohe Group stands for long-lasting quality products. With 34 subsidiaries and 21 sales offices supplying products in more than 140 countries, the company is a reliable partner to its customers around the world. The Hansgrohe Group, its brands and products have won numerous awards, including more than 500 design prizes since 1974. Sustainable production of resource-conserving products is central to the company’s business activities around the globe. The products of the Hansgrohe Group are featured in projects around the world, such as the luxurious ocean liner Queen Mary 2, and the world’s tallest building, the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. The Group’s high quality standards are ensured by five wholly-owned production facilities: two in Germany, one each in France, the United States and China. In 2017, the Hansgrohe Group generated a turnover of EUR 1.077 billion. It employs about 5,000 people worldwide, about 60 percent of whom work in Germany.