07.05.2021

New CFO for Wacker Neuson

Wacker Neuson has appointed Christoph Burkhard as its new chief financial officer.

He will officially join the company at the start of June, at the same time as the new chief executive Karl Tragl comes on board, taking over from Kurt Helletzgruber. Helletzgruber was originally seconded from the supervisory board on an interim basis following the departure of Wilfried Trepels at the end of November over differences of opinion on the corporate management of the company - see: Wacker Neuson CEO & CFO to depart.

In his new role Burkhard will be responsible for finance, controlling and risk management as well as auditing, IT and sales financing. He joins the company after four and a half years as chief financial officer of Nordex, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of wind turbine systems. Prior to that he spent 18 years with Siemens, where he worked in a number of divisions, having started with the company in 1998 as director of project and export finance. In 2008 he was appointed chief financial officer of the European onshore wind power business, switching to its offshore wind division.
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Christoph Burkhard

Burkhard began his career as an analyst with the European Commission in Luxembourg, following a year at the London School of Economics. In 1993 he moved to the Zivnostenska Banka as a trainee analyst shortly after the German bank BHF had acquired 40 percent stake when the Czech bank was privatised. In 1997 he joined IPC and the European Bank for Reconstruction, as a senior advisor, moving to Siemens a year and a half later.

Chairman of the supervisory board Hans Neunteufel said: “With Christoph Burkhard, we have won a CFO with a large amount of international experience coupled with outstanding expertise in financing and the execution of global transformation processes. In addition to this, Burkhard has already proven his ability to successfully and sustainably manage working capital in a rapidly expanding global engineering company – a very important area also for our group.”

Burkhard added: “I am really looking forward to supporting the Wacker Neuson group on its exciting journey shaped by emerging opportunities through an integrated finance function, and to driving the company’s strategic goals, such as the expansion of the zero emission portfolio, in collaboration with the entire executive team.”