People in Composites: June 2022

Hexagon Digital Wave appoints new president in May

Hexagon Digital Wave (Centennial, Colo., U.S.), a business of Hexagon Composites (Alesund, Norway) and global company for non-destructive testing (NDT) methods for high-pressure vessels, has announced the appointment of Melissa D. Holler as its new president, effective May 23, 2022. A highly experienced senior leader with more than 25 years’ experience from both mature and startup companies, Holler has a proven track record in strategy development and execution, as well as significant commercial experience within digital transformation solutions. Most recently she served as vice president digital business at FLSmidth (Copenhagen, Denmark), an OEM and digital supplier to the global cement and mining industries. Prior to FLSmidth, Holler held global vice president roles at Emerson Automation (St. Louis, Mo., U.S.), as well as other leadership roles at Siemens Energy & Automation (Munich, Germany) and Rockwell Automation (Milwaukee, Wis., U.S.). She holds a Master of Science in business and engineering from Case Western Reserve University (Cleveland, Ohio, U.S.), and a Bachelor of Science in computer engineering.

“Hexagon Digital Wave’s technology enables digital transformation in the clean mobility and industrial gas markets,” Jon Erik Engeset, CEO Hexagon Composites, says. “Having expansive digitalization experience from the renewable, automotive, and oil and gas sectors, Melissa will provide visionary and strategic leadership for the organization and enhance our speed to market.”

Holler will be based in the Denver, Colo., area where Hexagon Digital Wave is located.

Jim Milne, chairman and managing director of Balmoral Group, receives knighthood

Balmoral Group chairman and managing director, Sir James S Milne CBE, DL, DHC, Hon DBA, Hon FRIAS. 

Jim Milne, chairman and managing director of Balmoral Group (Aberdeen U.K.), now officially Sir James S Milne CBE, DL, DHC, Hon DBA, Hon FRIAS, was awarded the honor of Knight Bachelor in the Queen’s Birthday 2022 Honors List for services to business and charity.

Following the acceptance of his knighthood, Milne says, “I am deeply honored and quite taken aback to have received such humbling recognition from Her Majesty The Queen. For as long as I can remember I have strived to be the best I can be and, I think, have encouraged others to do and think the same way. I am very fortunate in that I have been surrounded by a loving family all my life and they have given me the strength and freedom to pursue my commercial, charitable and personal dreams. The good Lord has been watching and guiding me too, of course.”

Milne is often quoted as saying that he hasn’t come a long way in life, as his company’s corporate headquarters are located less than a mile from where he was born and brought up on the family farm. Like all business people, he has experienced numerous highs and lows, both on a commercial and personal level and, somehow, has always bounced back. He is also a firm believer that the way to get on in life is to take calculated risks, make mistakes and learn from them — and admits to making quite a few in his time.

“I do believe, however, that I was a born entrepreneur; growing lettuce and mushrooms; buying, renovating and selling cars while at school before acquiring an 84- x 21-foot ex-RAF hut from Kinloss to start up my first glass fiber manufacturing operation on the family Home Farm of Tullos,” he reflects. Now, Balmoral Group operates from a 45-acre site in Aberdeen and has engineering and manufacturing facilities in Newcastle, South Yorkshire and South Wales, all run by dedicated and committed individuals.

Milne is joint founder and chairman of Friends of ANCHOR, a charity established in 1997 that supports Aberdeen’s cancer and haematology care unit, as well as financing many ground-breaking research programs.

“Since 1997 Balmoral has funded all the fundraising team and administrative costs of Friends of ANCHOR,” he says. “The charity, in its 25^th year, is on course to reach a record project target of £2 million that will help make the difference in Aberdeen’s new cancer care center due to open in 2023. This is a fantastic effort by the FoA team and their volunteers.”

See “Composites protect subsea cables for offshore wind power.”

Aerospace industry leader strengthens Board of Velocity Composites

David Bailey, Velocity Composites Board member.

Aerospace specialist David Bailey is joining the Board of composites manufacturer Velocity Composites (Burnley, Lancs, U.K.) as an independent non-executive director.

Bailey, who is the CEO of the trade association Composites UK (Berkhamsted), also sits on the Board of the Aerospace Growth Partnership representing the regions of the U.K. and their supply chains.

“I’m thrilled to be joining the board of Velocity Composites to support the organization’s growth at this important time with the opportunities for diversification worldwide that are emerging in existing and new markets,” Bailey notes.

According to Andy Beaden, chairman of Velocity, “David brings to Velocity considerable experience and understanding of aerospace industry supply chains and the composites sector. We are delighted that we have attracted such a high-caliber candidate to join the Board, endorsing the exciting future the company has.”

Former chief executive officer (CEO) for the Northwest Aerospace Alliance (Nelson, U.K.), Bailey was responsible for what is said to be one of the largest aerospace clusters in the world representing 240 aerospace member companies (including organizations such as BAE Systems, Airbus, Rolls-Royce, and Safran) with a combined turnover in excess of £8 billion and employing 26,000 highly skilled people across northwestern England.

Velocity Composites manufactures advanced carbon fiber and ancillary material kits for use in the aerospace and associated industries. The company uses its process knowledge, business processes and proprietary software to reduce the amount of material required by its customers and also reduce the associated material waste when making aircraft parts.

Plastic Omnium merges Human Resources and Sustainability functions under new executive vice president

“Societal and environmental matters are very important for our teams, and the way we address them is essential for attracting new talents. The merger of Sustainability and Human Resources functions shows how important it is for Plastic Omnium to be even more people-centric,” Laurent Favre, CEO, Plastic Omnium, says. “In a mobility industry that is undergoing profound change, we are convinced that engaging and motivating our talented people will be crucial to achieve our ambitious growth strategy.”

David Meneses has been appointed as executive vice president, people and sustainability, and a member of the executive committee at Plastic Omnium (Île-de-France, France). Reporting to Favre, his mission will be to pool the employee engagement stakes shared by the two functions while pursuing their respective strategic roadmaps, in support of Plastic Omnium’s transformation. As of June 14, Meneses also took over the Human Resources role previously held by Jana Kley, who is leaving the group.

David Meneses joined Plastic Omnium in 2021 in the newly created position of EVP Sustainability. Previously, he held similar position at Air Liquide (Paris, France) since 2017. Throughout his career in the industry, Meneses has successively held positions in R&D, business development, marketing — both in France and in Japan — as well as operational business positions in the U.S. and Central America.

Meneses, 49, is a graduate from ESPCI Paris engineering school (École Supérieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielles de la Ville de Paris) and holds a post-graduate degree in process engineering.

Michelman appoints new member to Board of Directors

Jeffrey J. Prosinski, on Michelman Board of Directors.

Michelman Michelman (Cincinnati, Ohio, U.S.) has appointed Jeffrey J. Prosinski to its Board of Directors. Prosinski is the executive vice president and chief financial officer (CFO) at J.M. Huber Corp. (Edison, N.J., U.S.).

According to Steve Shifman, executive chairman of the Board at Michelman, “It is a great honor to announce this appointment. Mr. Prosinski has decades of leadership experience in positions at companies directly related to Michelman’s core businesses. His time spent leading family owned businesses like ours should prove invaluable. We believe his wisdom and insights will help us as we continue working toward innovating a sustainable future.”

Prosinski has served as CFO of Huber since 2006. Huber operates a diverse portfolio of companies, including CP Kelco, Huber Engineered Materials, Huber Engineered Woods and Huber Resources Corp. Like Michelman, those companies operate locations around the world. Before joining Huber, Prosinski worked at PolyOne Corp. (Avon Lake, Ohio, U.S.), where he was the finance director for the North American Plastics organization from 1994 to 2003.

“Huber has remained family owned since its founding in 1883, while Michelman has also been family owned since its inception in 1949,” Prosinski notes. “I look forward to sharing my ideas and observations regarding what it takes to successfully grow a private, family owned business in a competitive, global economy. I’m excited to work alongside such a talented group.”

Prosinski started his term on the Michelman Board of Directors in Q1 2022.

Naming of new Lilium CEO to accelerates product, business growth

Klaus Roewe, to be Lilium’s new CEO.

Lilium N.V. (Munich, Germany) is accelerating its next phase of product delivery and business growth with the naming of Klaus Roewe, long-time Airbus executive, as CEO. Roewe will be joining Lilium on August 1, 2022. Daniel Wiegand, Lilium co-founder and the current CEO, will continue as Lilium’s chief engineer for innovation and future programs, and as a Board director.

“The Board ran an extensive global CEO search and are genuinely excited with the appointment of Klaus Roewe,” Lilium chairman, Tom Enders, says. “We believe adding Klaus as CEO will give us unparalleled executional leadership to complement Lilium’s innovative DNA as we continue the development of the Lilium Jet and advance towards type certification and scale production — Klaus has a breadth of operational experience that is very rare in our industry.”

During his 30 years at Airbus (Toulouse, France) Roewe has spearheaded all phases of the life cycle of a commercial aircraft across engineering, manufacturing, program management and customer support. He led Airbus’ business line, the A320 and A320neo programs, to unprecedented success during his tenure, reportedly improving aircraft performance, doubling EBIT and cutting unit costs, while increasing market share and FCF.

“I’m proud to be joining the most innovative and differentiated eVTOL company in our industry,“ Roewe says. “I look forward to working with all the Lilium teams to advance the development of our aircraft and to drive Lilium’s success in revolutionizing sustainable air transport.”

As is standard practice, the formal role of CEO will be effective upon approval at Lilium’s 2022 Annual General Meeting of Shareholders. 

KraussMaffei realigns New Machines Division

Xiaojun Cui, new head of KraussMaffei’s New Machines Business.

KraussMaffei (Munich, Germany) has announced the realignment of its New Machines (NM) Division, which will be split into Business and Operations. This is accompanied through changes in the management team: Xiaojun Cui, CEO of KraussMaffei China, will take over the global management of the NM Division, Business, on July 1, 2022. He will also remain responsible for KraussMaffei China until further notice. Lars Hoppe, currently vice president operations, will be responsible for NM global Operations. The previous head of the NM Division, Dr. Volker Nilles, will leave the company on June 30, 2022. Cui and Hoppe will both report to CEO Dr. Michael Ruf in their respective new positions as executive vice president.

“We are pleased that we have been able to win Xiaojun Cui, an experienced and successful manager and KraussMaffei expert, for our New Machines Division, Business area. He has done an outstanding job over the past two years and has put KraussMaffei on a very successful growth path in China. With Xiaojun Cui, KraussMaffei management also becomes more international, which is important for the future viability of the company,” Dr. Michael Ruf says. “At the same time, we are pleased to have a top manager for our global Operations in Lars Hoppe, who brings experience in managing international companies. Xiaojun Cui and Lars Hoppe will join forces to help build the new KraussMaffei and lead the company into a successful future together.:

Lars Hoppe, new head of KraussMaffei’s New Machines Operations.

The changes at the NM Division will also see the following split as of July 1: NM Business will comprise sales, R&D and order engineering, project management, and application and product owner, and will be headed by Xiaojun Cui. Operations as well as quality and procurement will be headed by Lars Hoppe.

“The changes at the New Machines Division are aimed at making the entire KraussMaffei organization faster and more efficient worldwide, for example with regard to delivery times and cost structure,” Ruf explains. “We want to use all of our locations in the best possible way for our business in order to be able to optimally serve our customers all over the globe.”

Cui has been responsible for KraussMaffei's business in China as CEO China since 2016. Prior to this, he held leading positions at companies such as Dresser-Rand (Houston, Texas, U.S.) and Honeywell Process Solutions (Phoenix, Ariz., U.S.). Cui has more than thirty years of experience in the fields of technology, project management and strategic consulting.

Hoppe has been vice president global operations at KraussMaffei since 2021. Previously, the mechanical engineer held management positions at companies such as Stratocon (Vancouver, British Columbia), Giesecke&Devrient (Munich, Germany) and Dywidag Systems International (Luxembourg). Hoppe has many years of experience in the areas of operations and supply chain management as well as the management of global production sites.