The new tesa Executive Board

"Boarding" Completed

People

As of January 1, 2020, a new team headed by CEO Dr. Norman Goldberg manages the adhesive specialist tesa. With Angela Cackovich, the Supervisory Board appointed a woman to the company’s Global Executive Board for the first time. We introduce the four board members.

Text Jan Schütte

Dr. Norman Goldberg (CEO)

The 54-year-old has been a member of the tesa Global Executive Board since 2017 and was previously responsible for the division Direct Industries. Now, Dr. Norman Goldberg is the successor of the former CEO Dr. Robert Gereke, who retired on December 31, 2019. If you ask the new CEO about the exceptional features of tesa, he doesn’t need to think twice: “Friendly, Hanseatic, and changing,” replies the native of Freiburg. Before joining tesa, Goldberg worked as Managing Director and Co-CEO at Lohmann GmbH & Co. KG from 2009 to 2016. Before that, he held managing positions in the Henkel Group for nine years. Goldberg holds a doctoral degree in chemistry, he researched and taught at the University of Cornell (USA) as well as at the TU Braunschweig and states the following: “Passionate work fulfills me. I particularly like dealing with complex issues together with smart people from a variety of cultures, with completely different life paths and experiences.” Thus, the avowed team player, who values openness, honesty, and reliability, strives for an open discourse at tesa. “tesa is successful all over the world. We want to further expand this success by developing ourselves,” Goldberg describes the company’s future path.

dr-norman-goldberg
"tesa is successful all over the world. We want to further expand this success by developing ourselves."
Dr. Norman Goldberg

CEO

Angela Cackovich (Member of the Global Executive Board, Direct Industries)

Angela Cackovich is the first woman in the tesa company history to join the Board, and from now on she will head the division Direct Industries. The 53-year-old explains her motivation for moving from Henkel to tesa: “tesa follows the principles of entrepreneurial activity with values such as trust, respect, tolerance and integrity – and these values are very important to me, too.” Top-level management as well as the subject of “adhesive solutions” are very familiar to her. In addition to various global positions at Henkel since 2011, the chemical engineer holds a master’s degree in business administration and has experience in finance positions at Hoechst AG as well as three other renowned companies in the chemical industry: Dow Corning, Rohm & Haas, and Celanese. Although Cackovich has encouraged women to apply more proactively for leadership positions for many years, she believes diversity is the key to corporate success: “In my experience you work most successfully in diverse teams. However, diversity does not only stand for women and men, but also for other aspects, such as internationality and experience.”

Angela-Cackovich
"tesa follows the principles of entrepreneurial activity with values such as trust, respect, tolerance and integrity – and these values are very important to me, too."
Angela Cackovich

Member of the Global Executive Board, Direct Industries

Oliver Höfs (Member of the Global Executive Board, Trade Markets)

The 49-year-old holds the unofficial title of “old stager” not so much because he has headed the Trade Management department since 2016 and is the only one in the newly formed management quartet to remain in the same position, but rather because of his 21 years with the company. Oliver Höfs embodies a kind of thoroughbred tesa employee who has “researched” the “DNA” of the organization, especially in managerial positions in Singapore, Seoul, Shanghai, and Budapest: “The tesa culture exists in all sub-areas and everywhere in the tesa world and is the putty that holds us together so strongly,” says Höfs. The graduate in business administration completed three internships in the company before his first permanent position in 1998. “The diversity of tesa has always had an enormous appeal for me. Where else could you get to know so many different markets, products, and cultures?” Thus, who would be better suited to support his new colleagues on the tesa Global Executive Board than Oliver Höfs? “If you wish to understand in which direction tesa wants to develop, you naturally have to understand where tesa comes from,” says the old stager.

Oliver-hoefs
"The tesa culture exists in all sub-areas as well as everywhere in the tesa world and is the putty that holds us together so strongly."
Oliver Höfs

Member of the Global Executive Board, Trade Markets

Dr. Jörg Diesfeld (CFO)

He comes from the “family” and yet he is new to tesa. With Dr. Jörg Diesfeld as CFO, an internationally experienced specialist completes the four-member Global Executive Board. The path of the doctor of economics on the board led him to various management positions at the tesa parent company: He has worked for Beiersdorf AG in Germany, Russia, and USA since 2003, most recently at the Hamburg Headquarter as Vice President Finance / CFO Pharmacy and Selective Brands until the end of 2019. “I love discovering new things, people, and cultures. For me, that is always an inspiration and at the same time a challenge,” says Diesfeld. During his business studies, which he completed after finishing his training as a bank clerk at Deutsche Bank, he developed a predilection for company figures. In line with this passion: his first professional position as a strategic consultant at Boston Consulting. What fascinates you about this field to this day? “Finance is not just about numbers, but above all about doing something based on numbers – thus, it’s about action.” He sees good teamwork – inside and outside the finance department – and open communication as essential guarantees of success. At the beginning of the new year, he succeeded Jan Christoph Teetz as new tesa CFO. Teetz had held this position since 2006 and will resign on April 30, 2020.

dr-joerg-diesfeld
"Finance is not just about numbers, but above all about doing something based on numbers – thus, it’s about action."
Dr. Jörg Diesfeld

CFO

Management and Supervisory Board

You may find short CVs of the board members here

mitarbeiter

tesa

The tesa Group is one of the world’s leading manufacturers of technical adhesive tapes and adhesive system solutions (more than 7,000 products) for industrial and professional customers as well as for end users. In 2001, tesa became independent as a 100 percent affiliate of Beiersdorf AG (whose products include NIVEA, Eucerin, and la prairie).