Annual Report2023
Introducing the new CEO
HENSOLDT
welcomes
Oliver Dörre
Oliver Dörre will be the new CEO of HENSOLDT from April. He has been a member of the Management Board since January. He used the first few weeks of the new year to visit HENSOLDT sites around the world.
Back in March 2023, the HENSOLDT Supervisory Board appointed Oliver Dörre to succeed Thomas Müller as CEO of the company as part of early and long-term succession planning. On 1 January 2024, Oliver Dörre joined the HENSOLDT Management Board as an additional member and in his first weeks visited HENSOLDT sites in Germany, France and South Africa together with Thomas Müller, Chief Strategy Officer Celia Pelaz and other executives. He will take over as CEO when Thomas Müller leaves the company on 1 April 2024.
France
Oliver Dörre: "What a great experience to get to know our highly motivated and innovative HENSOLDT France team. As a passionate European, I am particularly pleased that French and German core competences are growing together here to create a truly global service offering. In the defence and security sector in particular, the resulting operational availability of important platforms and systems is a key requirement for our customers."
United Kingdom
Oliver Dörre: "During my visit to HENSOLDT UK in Enfield, I was able to experience the unique products, solutions and channels that our UK team provides for the entire Group. With a powerful portfolio of proprietary products built on a common technology architecture. With a robust industrial footprint in the UK that paves the way for partnerships with OEMs and market access that is important for our internationalisation strategy and extends beyond just the UK business. And finally, with a positive spirit based on 250 years of proud history and a high level of motivation from all the HENSOLDTians I have met here."
South Africa
Oliver Dörre: "Three exciting days in Cape Town and Pretoria, where I visited our South African HENSOLDT team. I was particularly impressed by the breadth of the portfolio contributed by our South African colleagues and the depth of added value achieved there. I also see future potential in the research and development capacity, which is important for the entire Group. It was great to see the clear visibility of the HENSOLDT brand 13,000 kilometres away from our headquarters. What I have experienced reinforces my belief that the South African team will make an important contribution to the further development of the Group."
Cape Town
Pretoria
Irene
Germany
Oberkochen
Oliver Dörre: "My day at the 'Optronics Valley' in Oberkochen could be summarised under the motto: history meets future. With 120 years of engineering tradition, power, professionalism, methodology, structure, transparency, but above all a very special spirit and a lot of energy are used to develop and work on a variety of technologies across all domains: With solutions for sea, land and air. And with the merging of these solutions, their networking through further digitalisation, which will be crucial for us in the future. Another highlight was the visit to the shell of the new building, whose creative working environment is a clear sign of our future viability. Here you can clearly see that when there are challenges, HENSOLDT has teams with great potential to meet them."
Immenstadt
Oliver Dörre: "The R&D capacities in Immenstaad, which build on the long aerospace tradition in the Lake Constance region, are truly amazing. Technologies are developing rapidly and the need to reach the necessary level of maturity in digitalisation is high. The spirit of the HENSOLDTians, who are actively developing our solution expertise across all areas, is inspiring."
Ulm
Oliver Dörre: "My most important impression - apart from all the technology, enthusiasm for innovation and our future topics – are the people. The openness with which I am met and the high motivation of the teams to bring our HENSOLDT products forward are just contagious. I particularly felt this with our trainees and students in Ulm. It’s a real pleasure and makes you want more. All the more reason for me to look forward to the fantastic task of leading HENSOLDT into the next phase of its future. As a former ground-based air defence officer, visiting our TRML‑4D production facility was also a deeply moving moment for me - always with the terrible images from Ukraine in the back of my mind."
Taufkirchen
Oliver Dörre: "In today's dynamic market environment, where everything revolves around differentiation and usefulness, my visits confirm that we at HENSOLDT really do make a difference. Across all sectors, we are making a massive contribution to the 'Zeitenwende' with cutting-edge and effective solutions for our armed forces around the world in times of multiple and severe crises. As an air force officer, I am also very excited to be returning to my old and very relevant domains for HENSOLDT."
