Effective 1 July, the business areas of Commercial Specialty Tyres, Two-Wheel Tyres and Hoosier Racing Tyre are combined in a new Specialty Tyres business unit. As a result, from now on the entire Continental speciality tyre business will be developed, manufactured and distributed worldwide under the umbrella of the new unit: from tyres for material handling, the agricultural, port, and construction sectors, to bicycle and motorcycle tyres and tyres for racing.
Wolfgang Thomale, who has also been heading Commercial Specialty Tyres since 1 July, is responsible for the new business unit. The new unit also includes the Two-Wheel Tyres area under the leadership of Thomas Falke, and Racing under the responsibility of Joerg Burfien.
In the new role, Thomale reports directly to Christian Kötz, head of the Tyres business area and member of the Executive Board of Continental. "With the new business unit, we are following the path we embarked on to consistently align all activities in the Tires business area with the customer," says Kötz. "We are merging niche segments with highly-specialised requirements on the part of customers to develop solutions and services even more quickly and flexibly and to gradually expand our product range in the interests of our customers."
Thomale has been working at Continental for almost 30 years. He has held various positions in this time, most recently as head of PLT Channel Management Retail & Region Central Europe.