(PRESS RELEASE) Changes are on the horizon at Umicore Metal Deposition Solutions. Since February of this year, the business unit has a new Managing Director for the business line Electroplating: Michael Herkommer. The previous Managing Director Thomas Engert will go into well-deserved retirement at the end of August 2023 after a remarkable 39 years with the company. For 22 years, Engert successfully guided the fortunes of the renowned specialist for electroplated (precious) metal coatings and matching electrodes and is now handing over the helm to the previous head of technical sales.
The decision to focus on continuity with Michael Herkommer as the new head of the business line Electroplating is seen as a smart move in the direct surroundings. With his many years of experience in the company and in the industry, he will ensure that the company’s jointly developed goals are achieved, Engert is certain.
Herkommer (born 1968) studied at Aalen University of Applied Sciences and completed a Master’s degree at the University of Manchester. He gained more than a decade of professional experience at various companies in Germany and abroad before joining Umicore as a sales engineer in January 2005. Later, as head of strategic business development, he was able to help shape the course of the business line Electroplating before taking over responsibility for technical sales and thus also the product portfolio in 2014.
When asked about his ideas for the business line, the new Managing Director reacts with his typical level-headedness: “I have many plans, but I want continuous change in order to implement them sustainably. Employees, service providers and partners should be able to contrib-ute.” Of course there will be tangible changes, he continues, but he is not afraid of that for one reason in particular: “We are capable of development. We – and by that I mean first and foremost our qualified staff with their competence, their experience and their established networks – have proven that time and again. Incidentally, this capacity for evolution is also the decisive point why I decided to take on the task of managing director”.
Herkommer has worked in sales at most stages of his professional career. That is why he wants to continue to focus on a high level of customer orientation in order to recognise new industry requirements at an early stage. He sees customers as partners. For him, close coop-eration is the key to understanding and meeting future market needs. “This is the only way to be successful and to develop each other fur-ther,” says Herkommer.
The broad product portfolio for technical and decorative applications is to be continued in any case, but it is to be specifically adapted to market changes and current challenges through innovations. One ex-ample of this is a newly developed electrolyte that fulfils the desire for high-performance and at the same time durable charging contacts for electric cars. The expansion into products and processes for the sem-iconductor market also demonstrates the continuous and future-ori-ented evolutionary capability. In this way Umicore Metal Deposition Solutions should remain crisis-proof and still be able to meet the chal-lenges of the volatile electronics market.
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