Schmitz Cargobull mourns the death of Dr. Heinz Schmitz, who passed away on 17 October 2025 at the age of 88. After the death of his father August Schmitz in 1970, he took on the role of the personally liable partner in the Schmitz-Anhänger Fahrzeugbau-Gesellschaft OHG and was appointed in 1971 as managing director of the later Schmitz Anhängerbau GmbH & Co.KG. Together with his cousin Peter Schmitz, who also joined the management in 1973, he led the company in the third generation and strategically expanded the business. The addition by Bernd Hoffmann was another important step.
In the 1970s and 1980s, production capacities were massively expanded. In the 1990s, a strategic realignment was initiated – with a reduction of the product range and the introduction of a modular production system with international assembly plants. For the international positioning, the renaming from Schmitz Anhänger to Schmitz Cargobull was also carried out. From 2002 to 2010, Dr. Heinz Schmitz was last active in the company as a member of the supervisory board.
In addition, he championed industry interests; for example, from 1993 to 2000 he was for seven years a member of the VDA Presidium and represented there the manufacturers group of trailers, bodies and containers. Even after his active involvement, Schmitz remained closely
connected to the company and the industry.
The current Chief Financial Officer of Seehafen Kiel GmbH & Co. KG and managing director at Kiel-Holtenau Airport, Volker Prange, has retired. This also brings structural changes. The new Chief Financial Officer of Seehafen Kiel GmbH & Co. KG since 1 October 2025 is André Bender, the former adviser to the KG's management. At the same time, he will, together with Marcus Breuer, the former operations manager at the airport, take over the management of Kiel-Holtenau Airport in the form of a dual leadership. Both new managing directors have been with the corporate group for several years.
The Parliamentary Rail Transport Group (PG Schiene) in the German Bundestag unanimously elected the chairman of the Transport Committee, Tarek Al-Wazir MdB, Alliance 90/The Greens, as chair. DVF managing director Dr. Heike van Hoorn was appointed by the board of the Parliamentary Group as managing director of the PG Schiene. The other board members of the PG Schiene are: Michael Donth, MdB (CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktion), Anja Troff-Schaffarzyk, MdB (SPD-Bundestagsfraktion) and Luigi Pantisano, MdB (Fraktion Die Linke).
The Simon Hegele Group has appointed Oliver Urich, previously CIO, to the management board as of 01 October 2025. In addition to IT, he takes on responsibility for ESG, data protection and HR. Urich has
been with the group as CIO for more than five years.
Also as of 1 October 2025 Maximilian Thiele has taken the position of Vice President Sales & Product Management for the Loader Cranes Light and Medium (LCLM) segment at Hiab Oyj. He is responsible for the strategic development and global sales governance of light and medium load cranes. Thiele joined Hiab Germany GmbH in 2019 – he began as Sales & Dealer Manager and later became Prokurist and Service Manager for Hiab Germany and Austria. Most recently he served as Vice President Business & Dealer Development in the Hiab Services Division.
Thies Frederick Lünzmann recently supports Jochen Schmidt as head of the business area at Hoyer. Lünzmann began his commercial apprenticeship at Hoyer in 2010 and has since consistently progressed within the company. Going forward he will share overall leadership with Jochen Schmidt. To share the responsibility of the business area, they have set priorities in which they also represent each other: Schmidt focuses on internal sales, sales, site development and Future Fuels, Lünzmann on internal sales, projects and partners.
Frank Huster, Chief Executive Officer of the DSLV Bundesverband Spedition und Logistik, was appointed in the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), Brussels, as a member of Group 1 (employers) for the
now starting five-year term. Huster is a member of the EESC’s expert groups on Transport, Energy, Infrastructure and Information Society (TEN) as well as Employment, Social Affairs and Union Citizenship (SOC).
Vincent Lachenal takes on the position of Sales Manager France at the Bear-Machines distributor Axxcelerate. In this role he also assumes the sales of the Bear-Cut-machine in France. With this step Bear-Machines aims to further expand its international distribution. Lachenal, according to the company, has more than 30 years of sales experience in the commercial vehicle and capital goods sectors.Lachenal verfügt dem Unternehmen zufolge über mehr als 30 Jahre Vertriebserfahrung in der Nutzfahrzeug- und der Investitionsgüterbranche.
Arnaud Ribault wird mit Wirkung zum 1. November 2025 Head of Enlarged Europe Opel Vauxhall Brands. Zu seinem Verantwortungsbereich zählt auch der globale Vertrieb der beiden Marken. Ribault wird außerdem Mitglied des Executive Committee der Opel Automobile GmbH. Er tritt die Nachfolge von Tobias Gubitz an, der gleichzeitig eine internationale Rolle in der europäischen Stellantis-Organisation übernehmen wird. Ribault war zuletzt Deputy CEO bei der Peugeot Motocycles Groupe und dort global verantwortlich für Sales, Marketing und Supply Chain. Nun kehrt er zum Stellantis-Konzern zurück. Bis Januar 2024 war Ribault Europachef von Citroën und zuvor unter anderem Senior Vice President Sales and Marketing der Groupe PSA in Lateinamerika.
