Industry & Services >> CEO Interviews >> October 18, 2004
MARTIN RICHENHAGEN, President and Chief Executive Officer of AGCO
Corporation, was selected by the Board of Directors in March 2004. He
serves on the Executive Committee of the Board as well as the Succession
Planning Committee. Previously, Mr. Richenhagen was the Executive Vice
President at Forbo International SA, a manufacturing firm specializing
in flooring materials, headquartered in Switzerland. Immediately prior
to this work, Mr. Richenhagen served as Group President for CLAAS KgaA
mbH, headquartered in Germany, a global manufacturer of agricultural
equipment. Under Mr. Richenhagen's management, CLAAS achieved its most
successful year in its history with regard to sales and profits. At this
time, he was responsible for the entire operative business of the global
CLAAS sales companies, exports, customer service, parts distribution,
and human resources. He oversaw the introduction of several new products
and supervised the transformation of the export division into an
independent profit center. Overall results improved significantly
because of his reductions in costs for central staff units of marketing
and human resources, transportation and warehousing including logistics.
Prior to 1995, Mr. Richenhagen was the Senior Executive Vice President
of Field Operations for Schindler Aufzugefabrik GmbH in Germany. His
responsibilities included the management of the entire sales force
leadership (comprising over 1,200 individuals), customer service and
logistics. Over the course of two decades, his manufacturing career
covered a wide array of executive positions and managing directorships
with responsibility for sales, marketing, human resources, acquisitions
and joint ventures, logistics and materials purchase, inventory
management and competitor intelligence. An international business
executive, he graduated from the University of Bonn. Profile
a picture of the company at the present time?
Mr. Richenhagen: AGCO was founded about 14 years ago by an MBO.
