Bearing manufacturer NKE Austria GmbH has a new Managing Director: Matthias Ortner has been carrying out the duties of Deputy Managing Director in Steyr since October 2020. Since the departure of Managing Director Thomas Witzler the year before, Carlos Oehling, CEO of the Spanish parent company Fersa Bearings became Managing Director in Steyr. There has also been a change in sales management: Stefan Weidmann is now responsible for bearing sales worldwide.
Matthias Ortner as new Deputy Managing Director
Ortner joined NKE in 2018 as Director of Finance and gained further experience as HR Director and Head of Supply Chain Management. Commenting on his future missions, Ortner declared: "Despite the prevailing uncertainty in the market, I want to align the company to ensure we are ideally prepared for the future and can grow sustainably. We already deliver a substantial proportion of our products and services to the renewable energy sectors [...]. We will increase our efforts further in these areas.” According to him the company also offers potential for "further automating processes, structuring the organisation for greater flexibility and promoting the digitalisation of products and services.“ NKE should be a "fantastic workplace where everyone is challenged, but also encouraged”. He also intends for NKE to compete through innovative approaches.
Stefan Weidmann, new sales manager:
Weidmann began working for NKE in 2006 after graduating from the Business Academy in Steyr. He worked in internal and external sales for ten years, and in this capacity he was primarily responsible for the OEM business in Germany. From 2016 until 2019 he led the sales team for Europe, continued the development of OEM business in the strategic industries and expanded the aftermarket business through a network of trade partners. Regarding his plans as Sales Director, Weidmann says: "[...]I want to further raise the recognition level of NKE as a high-end manufacturer, expand existing customer relationships and develop new ones. [...] We also want to continue to grow in other applications, such as rail vehicles or agricultural machinery. And we intend to further consolidate our presence in the aftermarket. We now offer a standard product portfolio of more than 6,000 items which is distributed in over 80 countries through our worldwide network of trade partners."
