be inventive, diligent, careful, humble, and visionary. If companions is to describe the Swabian entrepreneur Berthold Leibinger, as they reveal the success formula of the German “Mittelstand”.
19 years Berthold Leibinger was old, when he went to the machine tool Builder Trumpf as a mechanic in the teaching. Approximately 100 employees the company had in the Swabian town of Ditzingen, at the time – today, worldwide there are over 13,000. Leibinger completed a mechanical engineering degree, then returned as a design engineer in the company. After stints in the US, the childless owner of the company chose him to head the design Department, and then to his successor.
Leibinger went to the risk. He took over successively the shares of the company, and eventually became the chief, however, remained a passionate inventor. “When he visited our Department, he had always a good idea,” recalled a veteran developer in the company. More than 100 patents were registered to the entrepreneur personally. Leibinger self-powered for decades, the three key innovations that contributed to the success of trump – today, a group of around 3.6 billion euros in annual sales.
the end of the 70s key innovation number three
followed at the end of the 50s Leibinger invented the “Copy NT nibbling machine series works”. You are allowed, cut-outs and contours of sheet metal parts to copy to the millimeter, and has sold around 13,000 Times around the world. The end of the sixties developed Leibinger automatic control for his machine – at that time a world novelty. At the end of the seventies, then the key innovation number three: in 1979, followed, Trumpf presented the first combination punching-Laser machine. The Laser technology opened the door for a line of business in which trump today is a world leader.
As a Visionary Leibinger proved to be not only with the technology. Also in the own successor trod the Patriarch on new paths. With 75 years, the father of three children, was the chief item – to the Surprise of Many, not to his son Peter or his son Mathias Kammüller, both of which have, until today, in the company’s leading positions-in-law, but his daughter Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller.
He holds a doctorate in German studies and a Generalist, preferring the two engineers in the family. Because, according to Leibinger, on the leadership ability there, and the “attitude”. It is important to shape the culture and strategy of the company, their own interests and to advocate for others. And since there was no “convincing character” as his daughter, Nicola.
turnover and number of employees doubled
For 13 years, Nicola Leibinger-Kammüller now at the top of the trump, by the way, she holds Supervisory Board mandates at Siemens and Axel Springer (Bild, Welt). Turnover and number of employees at Trumpf have doubled since then, more than. Her father had over the years, the office directly next to her. The building, incidentally, designed his second daughter, Berlin-based architect Regine Leibinger,.
Until 2012 Berthold Leibinger Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Trumpf. He was a member of, among other things, the Supervisory boards of Deutsche Bank, BMW and BASF. In addition, he founded the non-profit Berthold Leibinger Foundation, which offers, among other things, the Berthold Leibinger innovation prize.
Berthold Leibinger, died on Tuesday in the circle of his family. He would have been in November, 88 years of age.
