- Bridge-builder for Bosch: Tilman Todenhöfer steps down from supervisory board and Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand
- Also stepping down: Prof. Olaf Kübler and Dr. Michael Otto
- New to Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand: Prof. Renate Köcher and Prof. Lino Guzzella
- New to the supervisory board: Prof. Elgar Fleisch and Prof. Michael Kaschke
- New managing partner of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand: Dr. Wolfgang Malchow
There have been several changes in the composition of Robert Bosch Industrietreuhand KG (RBIK) and of the Robert Bosch GmbH supervisory board. After having reached the mandatory retirement age, Tilman Todenhöfer (72) and Prof. Olaf Kübler (73) have stepped down from both bodies. Dr. Michael Otto (72) is also leaving the RBIK for age reasons. Effective April 8, 2016, the vacant places in the RBIK will be taken by Prof. Renate Köcher (63) and Prof. Lino Guzzella (58). Effective April 9, 2016, Prof. Elgar Fleisch (48) and Prof. Michael Kaschke (58) have been newly appointed to the supervisory board.
Tilman Todenhöfer: bridge-builder and diplomat
Todenhöfer served the Bosch Group for some 40 years in all. Franz Fehrenbach, chairman of the shareholders’ meeting and of the supervisory board of Robert Bosch GmbH, paid tribute to Todenhöfer’s successful career: “Tilman Todenhöfer was an important bridge-builder, both within the company and on its behalf. At the start of the 1990s, he used his great diplomatic and interpersonal skills to forge a settlement between the two parties to the wage disputes of those years.” Todenhöfer’s time as director of industrial relations at Bosch was above all one in which far-reaching changes in working-time policy were made at engineering and manufacturing locations.
“Many employer representatives are aware of the different interests in negotiations. But only few know how to consider the positions of both sides and reach fair compromises. Tilman Todenhöfer was one of the few,” said Alfred Löckle, deputy chairman of the supervisory board and chairman of the central and combined works councils of Robert Bosch GmbH. “The industrial relations of the 1990s and the first decade of our millennium bear the stamp of Tilman Todenhöfer. They secured Germany’s competitiveness as an industrial location,” Fehrenbach added. It was also during this period that the company pension scheme was restructured. With the capital benefit plan (1998) and the Bosch pensions fund (2002), Bosch was the first industrial enterprise in Germany to provide a capital-based pension scheme for its associates.
Todenhöfer also played an active role in politics and society. At the end of the 1990s, he was a strong advocate of the German industry initiative to compensate people employed as forced laborers by the National Socialist regime. In the summer of 2000, Bosch was one of the founding members of the “Remembrance, Responsibility, and Future” foundation. In 2008, Todenhöfer was co-initiator of “Afrika kommt!”, an initiative of German industry for future leaders from subsaharan Africa. Summing up the debt the company owes to Todenhöfer, Fehrenbach said: “Associates, the shareholders, and the supervisory board would like to thank Tilman Todenhöfer for his extraordinary dedication and the many ways he has served the company over the past 40 years.”
Todenhöfer was appointed to the Bosch management board in 1993, becoming director of industrial relations in the same year. A qualified lawyer, he joined the RBIK in 1996. From 1999 to 2003, he was deputy chairman of the board of management. From mid-2003, he was one of the two managing partners of the RBIK. He was a member of the supervisory board of Robert Bosch GmbH from 2004.
Collaboration in a spirit of trust: Fehrenbach thanks Otto and Kübler
Fehrenbach also thanked Otto and Kübler for their contributions over the past several years. “At a very early stage, Michael Otto showed that successful entrepreneurship and sustainability are not mutually exclusive, but mutually beneficial. With this fundamental conviction, he played a significant role in the successful evolution of the Bosch Group.” The chairman of the Otto Group supervisory board, Otto joined the RBIK in 2005.
Speaking of Kübler, Fehrenbach said: “With his scientific knowledge and expertise in areas such as image processing, artificial intelligence, and robotics, Olaf Kübler provided important stimuli for the innovations developed at Bosch.” The former director of Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule (ETH) in Zurich has been a member of the supervisory board and the RBIK since 2007.
Successors in the RBIK and on the supervisory board
Prof. Renate Köcher, the managing director of the Allensbach Institute for Public Opinion Research, has been made a limited partner of the RBIK. The economist has been a member of the Robert Bosch GmbH supervisory board since 2012. She is also a member of the board of trustees of Robert Bosch Stiftung. Prof. Lino Guzzella, the president of ETH Zurich, has also been made a limited partner. Tilman Todenhöfer’s successor as managing partner of the RBIK will be Dr. Wolfgang Malchow. The former director of industrial relations and management board member of Robert Bosch GmbH has been a limited partner of the RBIK since July 2014. Since early 2012, he has been a member of the Robert Bosch GmbH supervisory board.
Prof. Elgar Fleisch has been newly appointed to the supervisory board. A business information technology graduate, he is a full professor of information and technology management at the University of St. Gallen and a professor of innovation management in ETH Zurich’s Department of Management, Technology, and Economics. At the University of St. Gallen, Prof. Fleisch also runs the Bosch IoT Lab, which researches business models for the internet of things. Joining him as a new member of the supervisory board is Prof. Michael Kaschke, president and CEO of Carl Zeiss AG. Kaschke, who has a PhD in physics, is an honorary professor at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology’s faculty for electronics and information science. Among other things, he is a member of the U.S. Board of the Presiding Committee of the BDI (Confederation of German Industry) and of the German government’s Council of Science and Humanities.
