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Changes in the management at the AZO Group

After 27 extremely prosperous years, Robert Zimmermann will be retiring as one of the managing partners of the AZO Group in Osterburken at the end of 2017. The current management by Robert and Rainer Zimmermann will be transferred to Rainer Zimmermann as the sole managing partner. The AZO Group will thus stay a family business under the ownership of the Zimmermann families.

Robert Zimmermann was born in 1951 as the oldest son of company’s founders Adolf and Marianne Zimmermann. In 1990, he and his younger brother Rainer Zimmermann, as joint managing partners, took over management of the company, which was founded by their parents in 1949.

At the time of the takeover by the two brothers, there was, in addition to the Osterburken site, a service and sales subsidiary in the USA, which had been founded by their parents in 1978. The company’s turnover then amounted to 110 million Deutschmark. AZO had 650 employees throug-hout the world. Today the AZO Group’s turnover is 180 million euros. It has a staff of 1038 worldwide, employed at three productions sites in Germany and at seven international sales and service subsi-diaries.

One of Robert Zimmermann’s priorities has been, and remains, investment in training and continuing professional development for staff. This is demonstrated not least by his work as chair of the local board of trustees at Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University (DHBW) in Mosbach, which he took on in 2014. What is more, he is also active on the supervisory board at the DHBW as a whole in Stuttgart.

With Rainer Zimmermann taking over sole management, this ensures a continuation of the com-pany’s development policy pursued in recent years. The AZO Group will remain a reliable and stable partner for its customers, employees and suppliers.