In at the deep end
“I had managed many job interviews before, that was nothing new for me. But the idea that, on this particular afternoon in September 2015, I was supposed to interview a mechanical engineer who had applied to Komax did actually surprise me a little. After all, it was my very first day on the job too.”
“My actual job at Komax was to head up development, operations, and service for Komax Solutions – in other words, special installations at the Rotkreuz site. Back then, Komax was refocusing on its core competence of wire processing, as its foray into the solar industry and medical technology hadn’t produced the necessary results. Everything seemed to be changing, and there was an almost euphoric mood in the air. Even the managing director was new: A few months before, Matijas Meyer had made my appointment official.
So, I was supposed to conduct an interview on my first day at work – but at least I wasn’t on my own. My boss, Günther Silberbauer, was with me, and that was great (although not so much for the applicant, who wasn’t able to win us over). But Günther and I did get to know each other better during the interview. And I won his trust. That’s the only explanation I can give myself for why, in only my second week, I was sent off on a business trip to Komax SLE in Grafenau, Germany, and in the third I was tasked with giving a credible pitch to a customer on the advantages of our Lambda 8. Everything moved fast at Komax, and I liked it.”
“2017, I became part of the leadership team at Komax Solutions, as Vice President Operations. Now I was constantly on the move, so that I could provide advice to our sites in the field of Operations. The main issues were timing and organization with regard to material ordering, incoming goods, assembly flow, etc. These were crucial topics when you think that, for instance, the people at our site in Hungary at the time were still working in a rudimentary factory with a garage door – so rudimentary in fact that it was time for a new factory. In 2021, together with my boss Jürgen Hohnhaus, I stepped up to the technical lead role at this factory, Komax Thonauer KFT in Budakeszi. And as if that wasn’t complex enough, just after I started there both of our programmers walked off the job – at the same time. In Switzerland, that would have been a big problem due to the skills shortage, but in Hungary we found superb successors for them within three months – a taste of how much potential there is in this job market. The garage setup with barely 20 employees eventually became a modern business with an 1,800 m² production area and today a workforce of around 60 people.
Here in Hungary we are exclusively producing special machinery for high-voltage cables, which in turn are being installed in electric cars. Many high-voltage wire harness manufacturers have a presence in Eastern Europe. We share information so as to drive progress in the automation of processing. I am right where I always wanted to be: at the center of change.”