Hansgrohe's New CEO Hans Juergen Kalmbach, Photo: Andreas Pohlmann

July 16, 2018

Effective August 1, 2018 Hans Juergen Kalmbach will become the new chairman of the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group; Reinhard Mayer has been appointed deputy chairman. Kalmbach succeeds Thorsten Klapproth who, after four years of successful business expansion, will turn over his position as CEO.

During Klapproth’s tenure, the company has grown significantly, most recently exceeding the 1 billion Euros in revenue in 2016. He successfully steered the transition phase to a process-controlled organization, which allowed the members of the company’s founding family Hans Grohe to retire from the operative side of business. In the realm of the growth strategy, which Klapproth initiated, he prepared the organization for the challenges of digitalization and, at the same time, strengthened the global competitive ability and overall profitability considerably. Under his leadership, the core identities of the company’s brands AXOR and Hansgrohe have been reinforced and focused on end consumers. With the founding of the Hansgrohe Campus, the organization’s in-house university, Klapproth laid the foundation to strengthen and develop the talent base within the Hansgrohe Group.

“Thorsten Klapproth has made a considerable contribution to the successful expansion of Hansgrohe over the past years,” said Klaus F. Jaenecke, chairman of the Supervisory Board of Hansgrohe. “Under his leadership, the Hansgrohe Group grew into a new dimension and became a truly global organization. I would like to thank him for his service, not only personally, but also on behalf of the entire Supervisory Board.”

Incoming CEO Kalmbach is a Black Forest native, born in 1974 in the city of Freudenstadt, close to the Hansgrohe Group Headquarters in Schiltach, Germany. He is currently an Executive Board member, responsible for International Sales. After starting his career within the Hansgrohe Group in 1998, Kalmbach held various leadership positions in Germany and abroad. From 2010 to 2014, he was responsible for the international business of the Delta Faucet Company – a subsidiary of the Hansgrohe Group’s majority shareholder, Masco Corp. He then returned to the Hansgrohe Group headquarters in Germany and assumed responsibility for the Sales Divisions Northern and Western Europe. In addition, he also led the Corporate Business Development. He took over the Sales Division Asia Pacific in 2015 and the Global Projects Division. Kalmbach holds a degree in Business Administration.

“It is now the right time to hand over to a new leadership generation, which will build on the strong foundation created over the past years,” said Jaenecke. “We have deliberately strengthened the sales functions of the Hansgrohe Group to further improve customer centricity as Hansgrohe expands globally. Hans Juergen Kalmbach has been one of the drivers of this change, and I am very pleased that he has agreed to lead the organization as its new CEO. He will continue to develop and implement the successful growth strategy for the benefit of our customers, employees and other stakeholders. The fact that we are able to recruit the new CEO from inside our organization is a clear sign for the breadth of leadership talent across the Hansgrohe Group.”

Next to Kalmbach, the Executive Board of the Hansgrohe Group continues to consist of Christophe Gourlan, Frank Schnatz, Frank Semling and Mayer, who will take on additional responsibilities as of August 1, 2018, in his new role as deputy chairman of the Executive Board.

“I appreciate the instilled trust in my abilities and I very much look forward to working together and mastering the tasks that lie ahead of us,” said Kalmbach. “Our customers and their needs have coined my career at Hansgrohe over the last 20 years, and they have made our success story possible. We will continue to focus on our customers and practice customer orientation successfully. Together with our motivated and engaged team of employees, we will advance the success story of the Hansgrohe Group.”