01.08.2023

New CFO for BKL

German crane sales and rental company BKL Baukran Logistik has appointed Johanna Lauter, 36, as chief financial officer. She takes over responsibility for the family company’s overall financial operations, including corporate finance, accounting, planning and control, tax, legal and compliance, supported by a team of eight.

She will work alongside chief executive and head of sales Jörg Hegestweiler and chief technical officer Robert Popp to create a three person executive team.

Lauter joins the company after almost 10 years with Munich based consulting group The Retail Performance Company, where she has been head of controlling and accounting for the past eight years, having joined the business in 2013 as controller. Prior to that she spent a year with Hansmann PR as an intern, followed by a year and a half as channel manager with UniCredit Leasing (Austria), six months with Lufthansa Technik in Switzerland, and nine months as a consultant with Dr. Schmidt.

Speaking of her new role she said: “As a true technophile, I am delighted to help shape the future of BKL, a real jewel on the SME landscape. My focus is on advancing the effective economic strategy that will safeguard the company's financial stability over the long term while enabling us to take flexible action in responding to every market situation."

Owner and chairman Alexander Volz added: “With the new executive management team, BKL is in an ideal position to achieve our dynamic expansion goals. This will involve extensive changes, both at the national and the international level, in the various business units handling all aspects of mobile cranes and tower cranes."

Established in 1969 BKL had revenues last year of €83 million, a 30 percent improvement on the prior year. It runs a fleets of 500 tower cranes, 100 mobile cranes and more than 20 mobile self-erecting tower cranes, along with loader cranes and a wide range of transport equipment. Based in Munich its operates from seven locations with 333 employees.