New chair and realignment at the Rittal Foundation

“You have helped to write three decades of company history”, said Professor Friedhelm Loh, Owner and CEO of the Friedhelm Loh Group, summing up Friedemann Hensgen’s activities. Mr Hensgen had been employed for 20 years at Rittal, the largest company of the Friedhelm Loh Group, in a variety of positions, including Head of Marketing, before becoming a member of the Rittal Foundation Board in 2011 and taking over as chair in 2014. He has now been ceremonially bid farewell and appointed an honorary member of the Rittal Foundation Board in recognition of his far-reaching commitment.

“You have always acted with passion, responsibility for people and with deep humility. For you, it was not a question of just fulfilling a function, but living it – out of conviction,” said a grateful Professor Loh, expressing his appreciation for the time and commitment Friedemann Hensgen had invested during his 30 years in the family-run business. “This is charity in action.” Since day one, he had shown outstanding commitment to the charitable purpose of the family business’s non-profit foundation. He was thus largely responsible for the Rittal Foundation’s wide-ranging social impact, particularly in the Central Hesse region.

At his farewell, Friedemann Hensgen thanked companions and colleagues for the cooperation, support and mutual trust that had kept him going every day for over 30 years. “Without cohesion and mutual trust, we would not have been able to perform our sustainable support activities true to the ‘Help for Self-Help’ motto," he emphasised, passing on the baton to Rainer Reissner as new Managing Director of the Rittal Foundation.

Repositioned for the future

Rainer Reissner is a trained banker. Before studying business administration, he had completed his theological-diaconal training as a community pastor at the Tabor Foundation, the study and residential community of the EH Marburg (the Tabor Evangelical University in Marburg). A native of Marburg, he can now look back on almost 30 years of experience in the welfare and social fields of work with management responsibility for children’s day-care centres, schools, and the care of the elderly. For example, he had been the Managing Director of the Tabor Foundation and chaired the Board of the German Community Diaconia Association Board. “I am grateful for the trust you have placed in me in taking on this important task, and I look forward to the cooperation ahead of us,” he added at his introduction. “Being able to do good for people and the region is a gift.”

Doubling the Foundation’s capital

The change in the Rittal Foundation is accompanied by a strategic realignment intended to strengthen the effectiveness of the Foundation’s funding activities. Professor Loh, for example, recently announced that the Foundation’s capital would be doubled, from €20 m to €40 million. At the same time, the Foundation Board decided to change the name to ‘Rittal Foundation, gemeinnützige Stiftung der Friedhelm Loh Group’ (Rittal Foundation, charitable foundation of the Friedhelm Loh Group), thus setting a new milestone for the Foundation’s work. Until now, the Rittal Foundation has been primarily active in the Central Hesse region, home to both the Friedhelm Loh Group and Rittal, with headquarters in Haiger and Herborn. Through the realignment, projects close to the Eplan, Cideon, Stahlo, LKH and German Edge Cloud company locations will be a more precise focus of funding activities. The Foundation is therefore increasing its commitments in the regions around Monheim am Rhein, Gräfelfing, Gera, Heiligenroth and Eschborn, among others. In choosing recipients for donations, it continues to focus on supporting organisations in education, welfare and social issues, culture and science.

The Rittal Foundation’s work underlines the Group’s close ties with the people in the region and its social responsibility for its own surroundings, which is actively lived by the owner and the Group's employees. Professor Friedhelm Loh established the Rittal Foundation in 2011 to mark Rittal's 50th anniversary. So far, three million euros have been donated for good causes from the Foundation’s capital income.