Richard Cesar takes over the management of the Birkenstock production facility in Görlitz.
He takes over for Hilmar Knoll, who is retiring after almost ten years in this position, the shoe manufacturer announced last week. Knoll joined Birkenstock in 2013 after “causing a stir in the industry with the establishment of a European running shoe production facility for one of the major sporting goods manufacturers”.
“When we started 8 years ago, the Görlitz production site was little more than an extended workbench where simple products were manufactured,” said Hilmar Knoll. “Today I am proud to see that very complex, high-quality products are manufactured here in Görlitz thanks to collaborations with luxury houses such as Dior, Rick Owens and Jil Sander.”
In his new role as plant manager of the Görlitz site, Cesar will drive the growth of the largest production facility, in which 59 million euros will be invested over a period of four years.
“Our goal is to support the company’s growth plans with a world-class production facility and to meet the global demand for high-quality shoes made in Germany,” says Cesar.
Cesar comes to Birkenstock from the Danish shoe manufacturer Ecco, where he held various management positions. Most recently he was responsible for production in Slovakia.
Birkenstock invests 110 million euros in new location
After it became known in December that Birkenstock was planning a new factory in the western Pomeranian city of Pasewalk, the project was not yet 100% secured at the time. In April, however, the starting shot was fired for the project and three and a half months later the foundation stone was laid.
Investments of at least 50 million euros were already planned for the first expansion phase of the plant in December. However, the “economic conditions” have changed since the start of construction, according to Birkenstock in a statement from mid-August. The latest developments on the raw materials markets and a more complex location concept have significantly increased investments. The bottom line is that the investments amount to around 110 million euros. This puts the company about a third ahead of the original plans.
“When we started planning our new facility almost a year and a half ago, the world looked different,” said Mark Jensen, Birkenstock Group’s chief technical operations officer. “I am all the more grateful to our teams that the project is still within the planned timeline despite inflation, turbulence on the raw materials markets and supply bottlenecks in the construction sector