Kai Th.
Schoeffler

Ten years ago, I was handed a four-person sales office in the US and told to make something out of it. No playbook, no local network, no manufacturing footprint.

Over the past decade, I turned it into a fully integrated manufacturing and R&D hub with 75 people and a project pipeline worth over 130 million dollars. Not as a caretaker. As the architect.

The longer version is really about one thing: the gap between a European headquarters and a North American market. Different expectations, different rhythms, different definitions of what "good" looks like. That gap is where most cross-border expansions quietly fall apart. I have spent my career learning how to close it — keeping trust on both sides, without losing credibility on either.

My background is a bit unusual: I started in finance and corporate development, which means I never think about business problems without the numbers that have to support the narrative. That is probably why I am comfortable owning a full P&L and why I tend to ask inconvenient questions early.