30.03.2007
Wiesbaden / Aschaffenburg, March 30, 2007 – Dr Matthias Schmitz (43) has been appointed to the Management Board of Linde Material Handling GmbH with effect from October 1, 2007.
His responsibilities as CFO of Linde Material Handling will include Finance & Controlling, Human Resources, IT, Pruchasing, Legal Affairs and Intellectual Properties. He succeeds Karl-Heinz Birkner, who is to become Head of Inhouse Consulting of KION Group with effect from October 1, 2007.
Dr Stefan Rinck, CEO of Linde Material Handling, said "We are delighted that Dr Matthias Schmitz is joining our management team. Having held various executive positions with international renowned engineering companies he brings with him many years of valuable management experience. This makes him an excellent successor to Karl-Heinz Birkner, whom we would like to thank very much for his commitment to Linde Material Handling.”
Dr Matthias Schmitz has been member of the Management Board of the Piston Systems Division of the automotive technology group Mahle, Stuttgart, with responsibility for Finance and Controlling since 2002. Prior to that, Dr Matthias Schmitz, who graduated as an industrial engineer, held various senior and executive positions – including Head of Group Controlling – with KSB AG, Frankenthal, an international supplier of pumps and valves. Dr Matthias Schmitz is married and has two children.
Linde Material Handling GmbH, Aschaffenburg (Germany), is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of forklift trucks and warehouse equipment. Linde Material Handling has 12,500 employees throughout the world and achieved annual sales in 2006 of around 2.6 billion euro. Linde Material Handling is a KION Group company. With its three brands, Linde, STILL and OM, KION is the market leader in Europe for industrial trucks and world number 2 in its industry sector. In fiscal 2006, the KION Group achieved sales of over 4.0 billion euro with more than 20,000 employees.
