Bernhard Gerwert To Retire In Mid-2016 After An Accomplished 36-Year Industry Career

Airbus Group SE has appointed Dirk Hoke (46) to succeed Bernhard Gerwert (62) as CEO of Airbus Defense and Space (DS) as of  1 April 2016.

Dirk Hoke, until recently CEO of the Large Drives business unit at Siemens AG, will join Airbus Group on 1 January 2016 as Deputy to Bernhard Gerwert. Between January and March next year, Dirk Hoke will familiarise himself with Airbus Group and the Defense and Space business in particular. During this time, Bernhard Gerwert will continue to lead Airbus DS as CEO. As of 1 April 2016, Dirk Hoke will take over the operational lead and become CEO of Airbus DS as well as member of the Group Executive Committee. Bernhard Gerwert will then support Dirk Hoke and Airbus Group CEO Tom Enders as a Senior Advisor at least until June 2016.

“Bernhard Gerwert intends to retire mid-2016, a plan he discussed with me already more than two years ago and which I have accepted,” said Enders. “Bernhard has been working in the aerospace industry for 36 years throughout which he excelled in many positions, culminating in his chief executive role at Airbus DS since 2013. Under his leadership, Defense and Space were merged and successfully restructured, with a clear focus on core business, Military Aircraft and Space.

“I am pleased that we found an excellent successor to Bernhard in Dirk Hoke; a man with a very remarkable track record of building and growing businesses throughout four continents; a man with strong experience in high-tech industries, engineering and project management, value-added services and digitalisation," Enders said. "In short, a manager well equipped for a world and business environment that is ever more accelerating in various dimensions.”

Dirk Hoke holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany. In 1994, he began his professional career in the automotive industry at Renault in Paris.  In 1996, he joined Siemens AG where he occupied various management posts over the last 18 years, including international assignments in Argentina, Austria, China, Morocco, the US as well as leading Siemens’ entire Africa activities, based out of Casablanca and Johannesburg. Much of his professional focus at Siemens has been on transportation systems, including building the Maglev Train in Shanghai and making Siemens the largest foreign railway supplier in China.

(Image provided with Airbus news release)

FMI: www.airbus.com