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Dr. rer. pol. Hans Meinhardt, President and CEO from 1976 to 1997; chairman of the Supervisory Board from 1997 to 2003.
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| For more than 48 years - that is more than a third of the company’s entire history - Hans Meinhardt has been in the service of Linde AG. He not only helped shape the corporate culture, under his leadership as President and CEO the company also grew to completely new dimensions: Between 1980, the year he was appointed President and CEO, and 1997, the year he transferred to the Supervisory Board, sales more than tripled from 2.742 billion marks to 9.545 billion marks, and profits (net income before taxes) increased by nearly a factor of six. |
Actually, Hans Meinhardt originally wanted to study history. But then he decided to pursue his degree in business management at the University of Frankfurt am Main and began his professional career in 1955 at Linde AG. He first completed a cycle through each of the individual plant groups as part of an internal training program and then worked in the auditing department in central administration in 1956. In 1957 Meinhardt received his Dr. rer. pol. degree.
In 1959 Hans Meinhardt transferred to the Güldner plant group in Aschaffenburg to set up an organization department. Two years later he joined commercial administration and in 1963 advanced into management.
One of Meinhardt’s great business successes is the development of this ailing plant group into a world market leader in industrial trucks.
In 1965 Meinhardt also became the assistant to the Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board and head of central administration, Dr. Johannes Simon, and built up the market research, marketing and planning departments, becoming manager of those departments as well.
In 1970 Hans Meinhardt became first a deputy member and as of June 1, 1971 a regular member of the Executive Board. He was responsible for the central administration and soon also for the Güldner and Köln-Sürth plant groups.
In 1976 Meinhardt replaced Hermann Linde as speaker of the Executive Board and became President and CEO in 1980.
Under his more than 20 years as Chief Executive, Linde AG rose to become a world market leader in industrial trucks, solidified its outstanding position as a facilities engineering company for the chemical and petrochemical industry, established itself as the European market leader in commercial refrigerated display cases, developed cryotechnology into a profitable field of business and established itself as one of the leading European manufacturers of technical gases.
In 1997, Hans Meinhardt transferred to the Supervisory Board and became its chairman. At the shareholder meeting of 2003, Dr. Hans Meinhardt brought his service on the Linde AG Supervisory Board to a close and entered retirement.