Helmut Knittel spent almost his entire working life at KLAUS Multiparking and had been one of the company’s three managing directors for the last 19 years.
During this time, he was responsible for the Finance, Legal, Purchasing and HR departments. His business areas will be taken over by Ilona Wachter-Gurski, our former Head of Marketing and Internal Sales, as his successor.
Michael Groneberg, one of our managing directors, accurately sums it up: “With the retirement of Helmut Knittel, we are losing a highly skilled person, who has been instrumental in shaping KLAUS Multiparking over the last few decades. He always stood out on account of his dedicated and level-headed nature. We will therefore not only miss him as a managing director, but most of all as a colleague as well.”
The retirement of Helmut Knittel marks a rather special end to the company’s succession. All three managing director posts have been filled with managers from within the company in the last few years: Michael Groneberg took over Günther Seiderer’s business areas in 2015, and Norbert Fäßler became Wolfgang Schuckel’s successor in 2017. Stepping into the shoes of Helmut Knittel at the helm of the company, Ilona Wachter-Gurski will now be the first ever female managing director in the history of KLAUS Multiparking. She has already been working for us for over 20 years and was previously the Head of Marketing and Internal Sales.
Helmut Knittel started his career with us 40 years ago as an accountant. Over time, he was also entrusted with all of the company’s legal issues until he finally became an authorised signatory and managing director in 2000. More recently, he was also the spokesman of the management board reporting to the supervisory board. One of the biggest projects in the career of Helmut Knittel was the construction of the new SmartFactory at the Aitrach site, for which he was responsible. Under the motto “KLAUS Multiparking 4.0” and with an investment of over ten million euros, an intelligent and digitally networked high-end manufacturing facility was created to make parking of the future a reality. Although Helmut Knittel has retired, he will remain available to the company in an advisory capacity.