Changes at the helm.

WILD Group’s CEO Josef Hackl is retiring at the end of April. From early April, Arthur Primus will be reinforcing the leadership team as COO, taking over at the helm together with CTO Wolfgang Warum and CFO Michael Wratschko.

Following more than 11 years of highly successful service within the WILD Group, Josef Hackl, a passionate regatta yachtsman, is handing over the helm at the age of 65. His successor as COO of the holding will be Arthur Primus who, until recently, served as Managing Director of Europlast. He will be steering the company’s fortunes alongside CTO Wolfgang Warum and CFO Michael Wratschko and will be in charge of all activities in product implementation. Since the beginning of this year, the joint management of WILD GmbH has been in the hands of Christian Rabitsch, Michael Wratschko, and Wolfgang Warum. The task of the newly formed management team will be to balance stability and change to lead the group into a successful future.

Reshuffling of responsibilities

As of the beginning of April, Arthur Primus will join the management team of WILD Holding, where he will be in charge of the strategic management of production.  The 50-year-old from Möllbrücke, Carinthia, is not unfamiliar with the group. Primus was Head of WILD’s Medical Technology Division in Völkermarkt from 2006 until 2011. “My positive memories, and especially those of the successful development of this division made the decision to return easy. The WILD Group is a real gem in Austria’s business landscape, and the products it manufactures for highly specialised niche players are hugely exciting”, admits Primus, who is looking forward to his new duties. One of the priorities he wants to focus on in the coming months is to further promote WILD’s development towards becoming a climate-neutral group.

“For me, sustainability is a multidimensional topic, affecting the relationship level to customers, suppliers, and above all staff members”, adds Primus, who also intends to place a greater emphasis on presenting WILD as an attractive employer

Christian Rabitsch was also appointed to a new position at the beginning of the year. He was promoted from WILD Group’s Head of Supply Chain Management to Managing Director of WILD GmbH. “To reflect the growing dynamism of our environment, I plan to further promote work in decentral project teams across the value stream. In this manner, we intend to develop quick and accurate answers to the questions of our customers. Always keeping our eyes on the best-suited solution and the satisfaction of our customers – it’s a core part of our DNA,” says the Pörtschach native.

 

WILD on a path of growth

This broad positioning of WILD’s management level can be largely attributed to the strong growth achieved by the technology partner, which operates in medical & life sciences, in-vitro diagnostics & analytics, additive manufacturing, laser, measurement and semiconductor technology. “Despite major uncertainties in the procurement and energy markets, we have grown by around 40 percent in the last five years. We expect sales to grow again this year,” stress Wolfgang Warum and Michael Wratschko. We owe this success to a positive symbiosis of specialists, networked thinking and teamwork. Accordingly, the company is making significant investments again this year, with plans to modernise the machine park and acquire fully automatic facilities.

A steady rise in WILD’s value

“At WILD, we know today what our task is, who our customers are, which new customers we want to bring on board and which technologies and services we cover ourselves or together with our partners. We have increased WILD’s benefit to our customers in an evolutionary, continuous manner”, explains outgoing CEO Josef Hackl. As of late April, he plans to turn his attention to his “new business model”. This means more time for sailing and music. Moreover, he is determined to learn to play a new instrument. This is exactly the message he wants to convey to the WILD team for the future: “Stay curious and don’t rely on experience. It’s more important to assess the current situation and act accordingly.”