Changes at Lufft: Our previous managing director Klaus Hirzel hands over the baton to his successor and takes care of customers and partners in future…

I have been CEO of our two companies, Lufft and MicKS, since 1989. On August 1, I will hand over the reins to my successor. In future, I will no longer decide, but help and support.

My vision was always forward-looking, so here too I will refrain from taking a long look back over history. I wouldn’t want to be without a single hour of the time I worked in the service of the company. Working with users, business partners, suppliers, employees and consultants, in the most positive sense of the word, as well as with the shareholders, was always instructive and stimulating. They have all enriched my life. Intercultural experiences have broadened my horizons and put many of the problems in our rich country into perspective.

Which is more difficult? “To go on and on” or “to let go at the right time”? Neither. The process has been planned for several years and the company is well prepared for the change.

Human capital, intellectual capital and user first

Three keywords come to mind in connection with this brief message: human capital and intellectual capital and the third keyword, which comes at the end of this article.

Human capital represents the true value of the company, although this is not shown on any balance sheet. We have highly trained employees from all generations who work with us today, in Fellbach, Berlin, California and China.

Mutual respect and a willingness to continually improve characterize our workforce. Never in the company’s history did we have a better structure of active employees.

“Only those who know their origin have a compass for the future”,

said Helmut Kohl on 3 October 1990, on the occasion of German reunification.

Knowledge management, i.e. the transfer of know-how to those now responsible and the sharing of knowledge with the younger generation, is the key to ensuring that mistakes are not made twice. We don’t want knowledge to be understood as exclusive individual property, but rather to share all information with our successors as needed.

This allows both “letting go” and “going on and on” to work side by side.

My future task is to perform a bridging function in terms of “intellectual capital”, particularly with regard to the relationships with our customers and markets. All our efforts as a company serve only one purpose:

User First

I wish you a great summer.