Between Technology and Controlling

Guido Beyß (1965) studied electronic engineering at the University of RWTH Aachen in Germany. After his Bachelor and driven by his interests of internal business processes he changed his focus to business administration and finished his master degree in controlling in summer 1992.

The first career stages: focus controlling

After his study he gained his first experiences at Carl Freudenberg in the south of Germany. Freudenberg develops and manufactures seals, vibration control technology components, filters, nonwovens, surface treatment products, release agents and speciality lubricants, medical technology and mechatronic products. As a typical controller, Beyß was responsible for the budgeting processes of the sales, production and research and development departments. As team member in various projects, he was the driver for the new pollen filtration, a standard nowadays in modern cars.

Two years after he joined The Gillette Company in Berlin. Gillette, “the best a man can get”, is a large American multinational company in the fast moving consumer goods like blades and razors, health and safety, personal care as well as Duracell batteries.

Over the following years Beyss became responsible in various management positions on both sides of the field: sales & commercial businesses as well as manufacturing processes. Especially his two-stage background of controlling and technology enabled him to think across the line. His new developed sensitivity analyses supported not only the market introduction of Mach3 in 1997 within Europe, but also determined areas for improvement within the production processes. Soon after joining Gillette, he became responsible as the manager “cost accounting and inventories” and supported the significant changes of the Berlin factory, which became necessary due to the Mach3 production launches.

Seven years after, Guido Beyss moved on to Wella AG in the area of Frankfurt. Wella is a global player within the personal care business and hair-specialist, structured in three business units. He became the CFO of the BU Production and Distribution, acting worldwide for the other two BUs.

Broadening Controlling to Consulting

2002 Guido Beyß joined the GEA Group AG in the Ruhr-area. GEA is the international leading cooperation acting in many fields as engineering and machine supplier for various industries. The main focus is on the food and energy sector, where the company develops solutions around its key products including adequate services. The first half year was filled by managing a turnaround, creating a service and spare part strategy and supporting several M&A activities. Shortly after he developed the new set up of the research and revelopment processes of the GEA segment Farm Technologies, he became the CFO and was responsible as the supply chain manager of the segment for the entire implementation.

In October 2004 Guido Beyss became managing director of the GEA Inhouse Consulting, a strategic and operational consulting organization supporting the GEA Board and all GEA Segments. During these years various projects followed on all continents around the globe. The project scopes were from developing markets in the BRIC countries, further acquisition potentials as well as pure operational projects like production strategies and optimizing production costs.

During the new set up of the GEA Group in 2009, the new concept of the GEA Segment Refrigeration Technologies (GEA RT) became his last project.

From Consulting to CTO

In 2010 Guido Beyß became Vice President of the segment GEA Refrigeration Technologies. The segment is leading in the industrial refrigeration and generated a sales of 565 Mio € in 2009 with customized solutions and services, produces compressors, refrigeration skid mounted units, freezers and other key components. In the role of the CTO is the entire product portfolio of the segment, the supply chain and procurement as well as sales of special products. Since than two acquisitions were successfully managed.

The new concept of the segment was successfully installed and shows significant results in all key figures till today. For further interests please visit the GEA homepage.

For the high innovation capacity within the refrigeration industry, the GEA Group was nominated as Best Innovator in 2011 organized by A.T. Kearney consultancy and WirtschaftsWoche.