EQS-News: CEO Maria Zesch hands over leadership of TAKKT AG - Andreas Weishaar takes over ad interim

CEO Maria Zesch hands over leadership of TAKKT AG - Andreas Weishaar takes over ad interim

After three successful years at the helm of TAKKT Group, Maria Zesch has decided to leave the company by mutual agreement with the Supervisory Board and pursue new career opportunities. Zesch will hand over the CEO role to Andreas Weishaar on August 1, 2024, who will lead the Group on an interim basis. The Supervisory Board has initiated the search for a long-term successor.
 

Stuttgart, Germany, July 1, 2024. After three years of successful transformation at TAKKT, CEO Maria Zesch has decided to pursue a new career path for personal reasons. By mutual agreement, the Supervisory Board and Maria Zesch have agreed to her resignation from the Management Board effective July 31, 2024. On August 1, 2024, Andreas Weishaar, a very successful and experienced manager, will take over the CEO role on an interim basis. The Supervisory Board has also started the process for a long-term replacement.

Maria Zesch came from Deutsche Telekom in 2021 to digitally transform TAKKT AG and focus more strongly on sustainability. Under Maria Zesch, TAKKT developed from a portfolio of individual companies into a compact and integrated group of companies with a strong focus on customer needs and sustainable products. Despite the difficult market environment, the Group has achieved important milestones in its transformation over the past few years in terms of sustainability and growth initiatives as well as the integration of the operating and functional units. The establishment of Group functions in the areas of Logistics, Technology & Data, Finance and HR has centralized important processes and made them more efficient.

"On behalf of the entire Supervisory Board, I would like to sincerely thank Maria Zesch for her outstanding commitment and successful work for our company," said Hubertus Mühlhäuser, Chairman of the Supervisory Board. "Maria Zesch has restructured TAKKT over the past three years, positively shaped the culture and sharpened the market positioning of our company. TAKKT will continue to pursue the transformation process she has successfully initiated and at the same time focus on new growth impulses. We wish Maria all the best and every success for her personal and professional future."

"Together, we have strategically and organizationally repositioned TAKKT and driven the transformation into a more integrated, customer-focused and sustainable company. We have integrated companies and brands and worked in parallel on implementing our vision of new worlds of work. An important aspect of this is increasing our business with sustainable products, which now account for around 30 percent of our sales. We are also receiving external recognition for this, for example by winning the prestigious German Sustainability Award. I am proud to have been part of this journey. Together with the Supervisory Board, I have decided that now is the right time to pass on the baton. It has been a pleasure to lead and shape TAKKT. I would like to thank our team and the Supervisory Board for the trust they have placed in me and wish Andreas Weishaar and the entire TAKKT team every success," said Maria Zesch.

At today's meeting, the Supervisory Board appointed Andreas Weishaar as CEO of TAKKT AG with effect from August 1, 2024. "TAKKT is confronted with persistently challenging conditions. After a difficult start to the year, the Group is currently working intensively on further developing its strategic direction in order to achieve sustainable growth. I am therefore very pleased that we have been able to appoint Andreas Weishaar, an extremely experienced manager, to the role of CEO at TAKKT on an interim basis. Together with CFO Lars Bolscho and the experienced Executive Team, he will lead the Group through the current challenges," said Mühlhäuser.

Andreas Weishaar looks back on a twenty-five-year career at renowned international companies. From 2019 to 2023, he was Officer and member of the Executive Team at CNH Industrial (NYSE:CNH), where he was responsible for strategy, HR, IT and digitalization, before being jointly responsible for the successful de-merger and IPO of Iveco Group (EXM:IVG). Prior to that, he served for three years as Officer and member of the Executive Team of the global foodservice equipment manufacturer Welbilt (NYSE:WBT), one of TAKKT AG's largest suppliers, and before that he worked for over ten years at the agricultural machinery group AGCO Corporation (NYSE:AGCO) in various management positions in Europe and Asia. He has in-depth knowledge of the end and supplier markets relevant to TAKKT and the digitalization of customer and business processes. Weishaar started his career in 1999 at the international management consultancy Arthur D. Little. "I am very much looking forward to my new role and working with the global team at TAKKT AG. Our goal will continue to be to offer our customers the greatest possible added value through our strong brands. Our immediate focus will be on the rapid implementation of further growth impulses and the further operational improvement of the performance of our business," says Andreas Weishaar.

Maria Zesch

Andreas Weishaar

About TAKKT AG

TAKKT AG is the leading omnichannel distributor for business equipment in Europe and North America. The Group is represented in more than 20 countries with its Industrial & Packaging, Office Furniture & Displays and FoodService divisions. The product range of the subsidiaries comprises more than 600,000 products for the areas of plant and warehouse equipment, office furniture, transport packaging, display articles and equipment for the food service industry, hotel market and retailers. The company is listed on the SDAX and is represented in the Prime Standard of the German Stock Exchange.

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