Weinheim, July 1, 2024. A generational change is underway on the Freudenberg Group’s Supervisory Board and Board of Partners. After the General Meeting, Mathias Thielen was elected as successor to Martin Wentzler in a constitutive meeting of the Supervisory Board and the Board of Partners. Wentzler has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Freudenberg SE and the Board of Partners of Freudenberg & Co. Kommanditgesellschaft for more than 30 years, serving as the chairman of each board over the last 10 years.
Martin Wentzler is a great-great-grandson of the company’s founder, Carl Johann Freudenberg. Thanks to his wide-ranging expertise and vision, he has made a lasting impact on the company in recent decades. An attorney, Wentzler has been a member of the Supervisory Board and Board of Partners since 1993 and began serving as chairman in 2014.
Over this period, he pressed ahead with advances in the company’s governance to promote its efficient and responsible management and direction. The guidelines and processes anchored in the company today are largely his work. Under his strong leadership, the Supervisory Board and the Board of Partners have supported the Board of Management in the successful positioning and strategic orientation of the Group. This was a significant contribution to Freudenberg’s ability to roughly double its revenue and profit over just the last 10 years. Wentzler will remain closely tied to the company as a member of the Freudenberg family and as a partner.
“On behalf of the Board of Management and all our employees, I thank Martin Wentzler for his longtime and continually engaged support for the company. Martin Wentzler has always been a valued advisor to me personally as well as to the entire Board of Management. Our cooperation was marked by great respect, trust and mutual appreciation. The nature of the cooperation has always been open, purposeful, constructive and forward-looking. Over the past few years, he has made a significant contribution to Freudenberg’s ability to make the right strategic decisions,” said Dr. Mohsen Sohi, CEO of the Freudenberg Group.
With Mathias Thielen’s election as chairman of each panel, a member of the sixth generation of the founding family has assumed this leadership role. The 53-year-old father and family man has been a member of both boards for nearly 17 years and has served in the role of deputy chairman since 2023. “In Mathias Thielen, an experienced, forward-looking and reliable partner has been elected. I am very much looking forward to our future cooperation,” said Dr. Mohsen Sohi.
Thielen has wide-ranging financial and industrial experience. After his legal studies in Bayreuth and Munich, he was employed in international leadership positions in major companies for 24 years, 16 of them at General Electric in France, the United States, Switzerland and the Czech Republic, along with eight years at Credit Suisse in Zurich, in various CFO and COO roles in each case.
“I am very much looking forward to the new challenge and am excited about the trust that has been placed in me. I am also looking forward to a continuation of the close, constructive cooperation with my colleagues on the entire Supervisory Board and the Board of Partners as well as the company’s management. Freudenberg stands for innovation, quality, sustainability and social responsibility – values that are very important to me personally,” Mathias Thielen said after his election.
The memberships of the Freudenberg SE Supervisory Board and the Board of Partners of Freudenberg & Co. KG are identical. Both panels have a maximum of 13 members, with the majority coming from the Freudenberg family. They advise the company’s management, monitor its leadership, and maintain contact between the company and the family. Today more than 370 descendants of Carl Johann Freudenberg, the company’s founder, own the company.
