New Management of TADANO FAUN GmbH: Kenichi Sawada succeeds Alexander Knecht as the new CEO and forms a new Management Team

Since 1 July 2017, Kenichi Sawada has been president of the Management of TADANO FAUN GmbH. Mr. Sawada, 51, succeeds Mr. Knecht, who, after having served the company for 8 years, will be taking on other challenges from 2018. Sawada will introduce further changes to the Management of TADANO FAUN GmbH.

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Sawada, born in 1966, commenced his career within the TADANO Group in the sales force for the sales territory Middle East more than 25 years ago. After seven years, he changed internally to the Sales Promotion & Planning Department. After another five years, he was designated President of the TADANO America Cooperation, heading the US business. Recently, in his capacity as Officer within the Japanese parent company of the Group, he managed the areas After-Sales Service, Used Cranes and Information / Communication Technology. In addition to his function as CEO, as of now, Sawada will manage the areas After-Sales Service, Spare Parts, Finance and IT within TADANO FAUN GmbH.

With almost 40 years of experience in the crane industry, his predecessor Knecht modernized TADANO FAUN GmbH significantly during his 8-year tenure and started to make the company, which was getting on a bit, fit for the challenges of the 21st century. His work focused primarily on improving company structures and processes with the aim to further enhance product and service quality. Mr. Sawada comments on this: "Mr. Knecht did a brilliant job for the company, and I would like to thank him cordially on behalf of the entire TADANO Group for doing so. I intend to build upon Mr. Knecht`s work and use my own experience to lead the company to a successful future." Knecht will continue in an advisory function for TADANO FAUN GmbH till the end of the year.

Along with the change of CEO, other posts will be newly assigned in the Management of TADANO FAUN GmbH. Ulrich Zschenderlein (48), formerly General Manager Material Management within the company, will be responsible for the areas Material Management, Production and Steel Construction as Director of Operations. Hiroaki Sakai (48), recently responsible for Quality & Service as Director in BQ TADANO in China, is taking over the Quality Management area. Nothing will change in Research and Development for which Yuji Muneno (48) has been responsible since 2016 as Director, recently General Manager for the area "Sustainable Value Engineering" in Japan. Rolf Sonntag (51), who had been working in various areas of the company for over 25 years and has been a member of the Board of Directors of TADANO FAUN GmbH since 2007, will be heading the areas Sales & Marketing, Order Processing and HR.

Another staff change concerns Thomas Schramm, holder of commercial power of attorney ("Prokura") and General Manager Sales & Marketing, who is leaving the company voluntarily to re-orientate himself. His tasks, including management of the subsidiaries TADANO UK Ltd. and TADANO France SAS, will be assumed as of immediately by Mr. Sonntag.