Continuation of the Term of President and CEO of Jena Germany

Recently, the supervisory board of Jenoptik, a leading German laser technology company, announced an important decision: to extend and confirm the term of Dr. Stefan Traeger as Chairman of the Executive Board, with a new term of three years starting from July 1, 2025, and the contract validity period correspondingly extended to June 30, 2028.

Dr. Stefan Traeger has been serving as the President and CEO of Jenoptik since 2017, and as a non-executive director of AIXTRON SE. This measure demonstrates the company's recognition and trust in Dr. Traeger's outstanding leadership.

Under the outstanding leadership of Dr. Traeger, Jena has achieved significant profit growth and strategic focus in recent years, successfully transforming into a vibrant optoelectronic group. His continuous management has not only solidified the company's market position, but also laid a solid foundation for us to achieve organic growth potential, effectively promoting the execution of established strategies.

Dr. Traeger expressed his expectations and gratitude for this appointment: "I am honored to continue working hand in hand with the partners of the Executive Board, all employees, esteemed clients, and shareholders. I sincerely thank the Supervisory Board for their trust and support, and look forward to continuing to work together to create a brilliant future for entrepreneurship and write a successful chapter.

Jenoptik Group is headquartered in Jena, Germany and is a globally renowned enterprise with optics as its core business. It is active in three optoelectronic departments: light and optics, light and production, and light and security. Under the TRIOPTICS brand, Jenoptik also offers optical testing and manufacturing systems for quality control of lenses, objectives, and camera modules. Its main target markets include the semiconductor industry, medical technology, automotive and mechanical engineering, and transportation.

Since 2017, Dr. Traeger has been working closely with the executive team to lead Jena in a profound strategic restructuring and direction adjustment. Their proposed "More Value" strategic blueprint aims to precisely invest the company's technological advantages in high growth future markets such as semiconductors and electronics, life sciences, medical technology, and intelligent mobility, creating significant added value for customers, employees, and shareholders through photonics solutions, and driving the company to achieve above average growth and profitability improvement.

During this period, Dr. Traeger worked alongside Chief Financial Officer Hans Dieter Schumacher to drive a series of significant changes with the concept of 'More Light'. These changes include establishing a more market-oriented organizational structure and management model, as well as implementing a series of measures aimed at promoting innovation and expanding global influence.

Under his leadership, Jena successfully completed multiple key acquisitions and achieved record highs in key performance indicators such as revenue, order volume, and revenue, writing a new chapter in the company's development.

On August 9th of this year, Jenoptik released its mid-term financial report forecast for the second quarter of 2024, which showed that the company still demonstrated strong growth momentum in a challenging market environment.

In the first half of the year, Jenoptik achieved significant growth in revenue and EBITDA. Despite facing challenges at the beginning, demand rebounded in the second quarter, laying a solid foundation for the full year performance.

In the first half of the year, Jenoptik's total revenue reached 540.8 million euros, a year-on-year increase of 7.1%, mainly driven by the strong performance of its advanced photonics solutions division and non photonics business companies. In the European market, the company achieved a significant growth of 18.9%.

Dr. Traeger has extensive experience in the optoelectronics industry and a strong academic background, holding a PhD in physics.
He has held senior management positions in multiple internationally renowned companies, including serving as a member of the management committee of the Swiss Tecan Group since 2013, responsible for the global business of the life sciences department; Previously, he also served as the Managing Director and Vice President and General Manager of the Global Life Sciences Division at Leica Microsystems; Earlier, he accumulated extensive management experience in multiple departments of Carl Zeiss Group, ultimately serving as the Director of Strategic Business Development at Carl Zeiss Meditec and the Managing Director of Carl Zeiss SMT Co., Ltd.

In summary, Dr. Stefan Traeger, with his outstanding leadership skills and extensive industry experience, has injected strong momentum into the sustainable development of Jena. Under his leadership, Jena is expected to continue to achieve even more brilliant accomplishments in the future.

Source: OFweek