Hochdorf, April 29, 2022 — In connection with the strategic focus, the management of the HOCHDORF Group is being expanded to include two specialist areas: “Sales and Marketing” and “Innovation, Research & Development.” Gerina Eberl-Hancock, Chief Revenue Officer, and Lukas Hartmann, Chief Innovation Officer, join the management team.
The HOCHDORF Group is becoming a Swiss brand of expertise for technologically sophisticated, functional specialty foods. As an innovative company, HOCHDORF wants to make a contribution to health-promoting, sustainable and modern nutrition. In order to accelerate the implementation of this strategy, the Board of Directors has decided to place the “Sales and Marketing” and “Innovation, Research & Development” divisions at management level in the future.
Gerina Eberl-Hancock, Chief Revenue Officer (CRO)
Gerina Eberl-Hancock will lead the HOCHDORF Group's sales and marketing team from May 1, 2022 and will join the management team in her role as CRO. She completed a Master of Business Administration in California (USA) and worked, among other things, from 1997 to 2020 in senior management positions in marketing and business development at Nestlé SA in Switzerland, Germany, the USA and North Africa; most recently as Managing Director Food & Beverages at Nestlé Maghreb.
Lukas Hartmann, Chief Innovation Officer (CIO)
Lukas Hartmann joined the HOCHDORF Group in 2017 as Head of Baby Care Development. In 2021, the two Baby Care and Food Solutions development departments were brought together into the “Innovation, Research & Development” department and placed under Lukas Hartmann. The success of the merger is already clearly visible in the numerous new developments that have been and are still being launched since then. Lukas Hartmann completed a Master of Science in Food Sciences at ETH in Zurich and the Master of Business Administration at the University of St. Gallen. From 2009 to 2013, he worked as a project manager in research and development at Nestlé at the Product Technology Center in the Infant Cereal Nutrition division. In this role, he was responsible for the development and implementation of recipes and processes in various factories worldwide. From 2013, as a process engineer at Nestlé Suisse in Konolfingen, he assumed responsibility for the development, implementation and commissioning of part of an investment project for the production of infant powder formula. In 2016, he joined a start-up as a business development manager for around a year.
Ralph Siegl, CEO and delegate of the Board of Directors, on expanding the management team: “With the new functions of Chief Revenue Officer and Chief Innovation Officer, we are strengthening the two areas of Sales and Marketing as well as Innovation, Research and Development that are important for implementing our strategy. In the spirit of, <Food for Life>we want to focus even more on developments in modern nutrition in the future and market our dairy and plant-based smart nutrition products to target groups. I am really looking forward to working with Gerina and Lukas.”
