Kukla Group Expands Management in the Holding

The Kukla Group is changing its leadership structure and expanding the management in the holding company. As of May 22, 2024, five new managing directors have been appointed to the holding. The management has been expanded by two positions in the areas of IT and Human Resources/Legal. With this new structure, the company aims to continue its growth.

(Munich) “With this strategic measure, we have established an operational management level in the holding that actively leads the entire group with its now eleven subsidiaries at 15 locations,” explains Knut Sander, CEO of the Kukla Group. The trigger for the expansion of the management for the group is the continuous increase of Robert Kukla’s presence in Europe and the associated growth of the locations. “We are now generating almost 60 percent of our results outside the headquarters in Munich. This is achieved through our subsidiaries that we have established over the past ten years,” Sander clarifies and concludes, “we are responding to this development by focusing on the entire group and operationally creating a framework.”

The management of the holding company, which operates under the name Robert Kukla Besitz GmbH, is composed as follows:

• Knut Sander, remains CEO of the Robert Kukla Group
• Robert Richter, CFO Kukla Group
• Axel Bohnensteffen, Intermodal and Shortsea Transport
• Dennis Mahnecke, Road Transport and Warehousing/Contract Logistics
• Tobias Wild, Human Resources and Legal
• Jan Rosenkranz, CIO

Three of the managing directors (Richter, Bohnensteffen, Mahnecke) who have been appointed to the holding have already been performing the same tasks for the Robert Kukla company in Munich for over a year. They will continue to carry out these responsibilities. The positions in IT and Human Resources/Legal are new, with Rosenkranz and Wild being the first to be included at the management level. Rosenkranz (38 years) started his career in 2002 as an apprentice at Kukla in Munich and has been leading the IT department there for five years. Wild (46 years) is a lawyer and has been the head of HR at Kukla Munich since 2019.

With the new orientation of the holding, the Kukla Group has created a clear structure and thus the prerequisites for continuous development. The shortsea specialist plans to expand its network in Eastern Europe. “We want to establish more subsidiaries. Geographically, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovenia are of particular interest,” Sander specifies.

In 2023, the Kukla Group was able to increase its EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes) by 35 percent. “The share generated by our subsidiaries is growing disproportionately,” Sander is pleased to report. For him, the concept of the subsidiaries is thus holistic: “We are not only strengthening our geographical presence and our forwarding services, but we are also diversifying our economic success.”

New Offices in Porto, Murcia, and Santander Last Year

Last year, the Kukla Group opened three new offices in Porto (Portugal), Murcia, and Santander (both Spain). Additionally, the Shared Service Center in Greece has opened its accounting services to external companies. Operationally, the shortsea traffic between England and the European mainland has seen above-average development, particularly on the routes to Spain and Portugal. On average, about 5,000 containers were moved monthly in this area alone. As a reason for the ongoing positive development, Sander cites the trend since Brexit, where traffic is shifting from trailers to container transport. Overall, the specialist for sustainable transport transported about 180,000 units in 2023. The shortsea share is about 50 percent.

Photo: © Robert Kukla / Image Caption: The management of Kukla Holding (l.r.) Knut Sander; Axel Bohnensteffen, Tobias Wild, Robert Richter, Dennis Mahnecke, and Jan Rosenkranz