The SMS group is implementing a strategic generation change at the top management. Jochen Burg (43), currently Head of the Service Business, will become the new CEO and Chairman of the SMS Management Board on October 1, 2023. He succeeds Burkhard Dahmen, who has been with the company for more than 33 years, including 20 years on the management board and eleven years as its chairman. Jochen Burg has been with SMS since 2008 and has successfully built up and expanded the global service business in recent years.
In addition, Fabíola Fernandez (46) will join the company on October 10, 2023, and take over the CFO role on the Executive Board on January 1, 2024. She succeeds Torsten Heising, who has held various management positions at SMS since 2006 and was appointed CFO in 2017. Fabíola Fernandez comes from Gegenbauer SE & Co. KG, a leading service company for facility management, where she is currently CFO and Co-CEO.
Until March 2024, Burkhard Dahmen and Torsten Heising will accompany the handover to ensure a seamless transition in all projects.
"Burkhard Dahmen and Torsten Heising have made a very significant contribution to positioning the SMS group for the future. In view of the good market situation, now is the ideal time to actively shape the generational change and thus also to initiate a new phase of departure. In Jochen Burg and Fabíola Fernandez we have found the ideal people for this. Together we will concentrate on the systematic expansion of our service business, the technological development of our plants, and the optimization of performance. My express thanks go to Burkhard Dahmen and Torsten Heising. Both have dedicated their professional lives to the SMS group and thus played a major role in shaping the successful development of the company, which celebrates its 150th anniversary this year. I wish Burkhard Dahmen and Torsten Heising all the best for the future," said Edwin Eichler, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the SMS group.
"I am very much looking forward to continuing the success story of the SMS group together with my colleagues on the Managing Board. The course for the coming years is clearly set. We have the best prerequisites and, above all, great employees worldwide to achieve our ambitious goals together," explains Jochen Burg, future CEO of the SMS group.
Fabíola Fernandez, future CFO of the SMS group: "The SMS group is facing very exciting and promising years. There are not many companies that can significantly shape the transformation of an entire industry. I am all the more pleased to become part of this significant challenge and to use my experience profitably for a successful and profitable future of the company."
