Gerold Linzbach, the CEO who brought Heidelberg back from the brink following the financial crisis, has died aged 67.
He was appointed CEO in 2012 to succeed Bernhard Schreier who at that time had been CEO for 13 years. Linzbach came in as an outsider but with a strong reputation. He had helped transform the fortunes of flavours business Symrise, investing in fully automated lights out production lines. At Heidelberg he first stemmed the losses, through cost cutting measures, changed the corporate culture and implemented a three-pronged strategy covering equipment, service and consumables. When he joined, Heidelberg had announced losses of €280 million for the 2011/12 financial year. By the close of the 2016 financial year, Heidelberg could report an operating profit of €26 million.
However, he also instigated a moved into inkjet printing predicting that digital printing would be a growth area to balance the decline in more traditional sectors. This resulted in the Primefire 106 which was later cancelled.
Towards the end of his time at Heidelberg he suffered a severe illness which took him away from the front line and left him confined to a wheelchair for the remainder of his tenure. His contract was not renewed in 2016 to his disappointment as having carried out the pruning, he had wanted to take the business on a growth path. Instead his contract was terminated several months early and Rainer Hundsdörfer was appointed in his place.
Heidelberg issued a statement following Linzbach’s death on Monday last week: “In his years as CEO, he has had a decisive influence on the strategic development of our company with his expertise and great personal commitment.”
Prior to joining Heidelberg Linzbach had worked in the US as well as Germany for McKinsey, Sanofi and Hoechst before leading the transformation of Symrise and then Heidelberg.
He opened up Heidelberg’s outlook, changed its rigid thinking and its ‘not invented here’ approach to technology, loosened its fixation with offset printing and stood in front of shareholders at an AGM without a tie, There were partnerships on technology, Fujifilm for printheads for example, with consumables and ways to use Heidelberg’s expertise beyond its core commercial and packaging print market.
Under his stewardship, the partnership with Masterwork began and its commercial finishing equipment was sold to Muller Martini.
