Dr André Philipp is the new Chief Operating Officer (COO) at SAF-Holland, while Alexander Geis assumes the newly created position of Chief Procurement Officer (CPO).
As a member of the Management Board, Philipp will assume his post with the SAF-Holland Group as of 1 January 2019. In his capacity, he will report to the Company's CEO, Detlef Borghardt.
In assuming the role as COO, Philipp will have central responsibility for all of the Group's production sites. The Global Quality, Global Lean Organisation and Global Operations functions will report to him directly. At the same time, the goal will be to make way for the regional presidents to focus even more intensely on developing the markets and customer-related efforts in the respective regions of America, EMEA and APAC/China while pursuing the Group's strong organic growth for the long term. In the first nine months of 2018, the SAF-Holland Group achieved total sales of €980.9 million (previous year: €864.7 million) and organic growth of 11.8 per cent.
One of the focal points of the expanded COO function, according to SAF-Holland, is to optimally interlink the processes within the Group-wide plant network of now 22 production sites and to standardise the process chains in order to achieve the highest level of operating efficiency possible at all plants. The core tasks of Philipp will include the operational implementation of the strategic goals in North America and China, particularly with respect to process optimisation and the accelerated increase in efficiency in the recently restructured production network in North America.
Philipp is a graduate in industrial engineering, and after further completing an MBA, he received his doctorate at the Chair for Management from Comenius University in Slovakia. Philipp has extensive experience in the automotive industry, particularly in the North American and Chinese markets. After several years with the Valeo Group among others as Managing Director of Valeo Beleuchtung Germany GmbH, he held various management positions at the Hella Group, where he last assumed responsibility as COO and Director Operations China. Philipp joins SAF-Holland transferring from his most recent position as COO at Deutz Dalian Engine, a joint venture between Deutz and the Chinese motor vehicle and engine manufacturer, FAW.
In addition to recasting its COO function, SAF-Holland will bundle all of its global purchasing activities for the first time and appoint Geis as CPO.
Geis will assume this newly created role effective immediately while maintaining his role as President of the EMEA segment, where he has been responsible for the region's central purchasing and has successfully restructured it. He will promptly implement the new, centrally controlled purchasing organisation for all reporting regions within the Group. The new CPO function will be responsible going forward for all of the strategic and operational purchasing activities within the SAF-Holland Group worldwide. In a market environment that continues to be challenging, SAF-Holland expects to take advantage of the options for process optimisation and realisable global purchasing synergies to make the purchasing process more efficient and thereby significantly improve the cost structure throughout the Group.