Karl Friedrich Stracke

Mr. Karl Friedrich Stracke, President Vehicle Technology & Engineering, MAGNA STEYR AG & Co KG, Graz spoke on the subject "Leadership principles of Magna Steyr to strengthen the global engineering business model".

The business model of an engineering service provider has changed significantly in recent years. In addition to a highly volatile business environment, companies in the automotive development sector have to master the increasing complexity of the general conditions. Life cycles are becoming shorter, the variety of models from individual manufacturers is increasing, new markets and new car manufacturers are being added and the trend is clearly moving towards global platforms. A globally active automotive supplier such as Magna Steyr therefore faces a number of challenges that lie not only in innovations, new technologies and efficient processes. In particular, it is the exemplary managers and their powerful teams that successfully meet these new challenges. What is the leadership personality of these important key employees, how do you train them and how do you keep them in the company in the long term? What measures need to be taken today to ensure that the managers of tomorrow make the right decisions? How do you win the "war for talent"?

Karl Friedrich Stracke, Born in Lichtenfels-Goddelsheim in 1956, he has been President Vehicle Technology & Engineering at Magna Steyr since April 2013 and is responsible for vehicle contract manufacturing, development, tank and battery systems. After studying mechanical engineering, he joined Adam Opel AG in Rüsselsheim in 1979 as a design engineer for substructures, front ends and side panels. After several positions as group and department manager in the areas of product design and production technology, Mr. Stracke became production director at Opel in Bochum in 1995. From 1999, he was Director of Product Development at Opel in Rüsselsheim. From 2004 to 2009, he held various positions as Executive Director for General Motors Product Development. From 2009 to 2011, Karl Friedrich Stracke was Chief Developer at General Motors (Vice President Global Vehicle Engineering), responsible for all GM brands in Detroit. In April 2011, he became Chairman of the Board of Adam Opel AG in Rüsselsheim and, from January 2012, GM's Head of Europe and President of GM Europe.

Status: Beginning of 2015