Hüttenes-Albertus Group realigns Board of Management

The Hüttenes-Albertus Group has realigned the Board of Management to prepare for the global challenges ahead and in so doing, initi-ated an important strategic change of direction.

Mr. Franz Friedrich Butz will join the Board of Management from the 1st of October this year. After a familiarisation period, he will suc-cessively take over the areas of Sales, Research and Development and Production from Dr. Carsten Kuhlgatz. As of the 1st of July 2019, he will then assume joint management re-sponsibility for the HA Group together with Mr. Christoph Koch.

Mr. Butz studied foundry technology in Gießen, Germany and began his working life as foundry manager at Kloth-Senking Metallgießerei (today the KSM Casting Group) in Hildesheim. His career path has taken him via the Honsel Werke in Meschede and Volkswagen AG in Hanover, Kassel and Shanghai to the Executive Board of the KSM Casting Group. Mr. Butz is a sales-oriented, internationally successful manager and specialist in the field of foundry technology.

He has extensive and comprehensive foundry experience and has a vocational qualification and university degree. Over the course of his career, Mr. Butz has worked in both the automo-tive and automotive supply sectors, and has accrued profound experience and expertise in the industry. We also appreciate his experience in designing and automating the fabrication of inorganic cores for large-scale production. Mr. Butz has enjoyed many years of success devel-oping new foundry markets on the international stage. Mr. Butz was responsible in China for both VW and for he collaboration with the Chinese owners of KSM, for instance.

After nearly 19 years as Managing Director, Dr. Kuhlgatz is retiring from active management as of the 30th of June 2019 and relinquishing his duties as Spokesman for the Board and CEO. He will remain closely tied to the company in his future role as a member of the Board of Direc-tors and Managing Partner of the Albertuswerke, however. Dr. Kuhlgatz will continue to repre-sent the Hüttenes-Albertus Group in future in the German and European Industrial and Employ-ers Confederations as well as the German and global Foundry Federations, and will promote activities aimed at recruiting new talent to the foundry sector.

Thanks to the dedicated work of Dr. Kuhlgatz and all those within the company, the Hüttenes-Albertus Group increased global sales to over 600 million euros with the prospect of further growth. "This makes the Hüttenes-Albertus Group the global market leader in the foundry chem-icals sector. Thanks to the resources we've developed – such as the Centre of Competence and consolidated research and development activities – Hüttenes-Albertus has established an innovative edge", reports Dr. Kuhlgatz.

source: Foundry Planet