CEO Siegfried Winkelbeiner is moving into a well-deserved retirement. 

The retiring CEO Siegfried Winkelbeiner (on the right) sums up his Schoeller era in one sentence: “Throughout the years, we have compared Schoeller to a ship under sail and have had to weather many a stormy challenge.” The team successfully pulled together and has been able to strengthen the company’s reputation as an innovation leader. On more than one occasion, exciting collaborative projects with both existing and new customers opened up previously-uptapped business fields and markets. Under the management of Siegfried Winkelbeiner, Schoeller has successfully weathered even the enormous appreciation of the Swiss franc and the current pandemic. His primary focus has always been to create a working environment in which staff and management have the opportunity to exercise their talents and skills for the benefit of the Schoeller Group.

The transition comes after long-term planning. Since February 2020, and in close partnership with Siegfried Winkelbeiner, Joachim Kath (on the left) has been preparing as Schoeller COO to take over its management. Joachim Kath originally comes from Flensburg (DE) and, following his studies of Chemical Engineering in Karlsruhe, shaped his professional career in the chemical industry with Ciba (-Geigy) / BASF in Basel (CH). His career over 30 years has incorporated engineering, production and marketing & sales in diverse management functions – in a wide range of business segments for various industries and areas of application around the globe. Joachim Kath spent 12 years of his career dedicated to textile finishing, with a period of intensive travel in Asia and a 3-year stay in the USA.