Dirk Hoke is to succeed Bernhard Gerwert as CEO of Airbus Defence and Space as of 1 April 2016.
Dirk Hoke, until recently CEO of the Large Drives business unit at Siemens AG, will join Airbus Group on 1 January 2016 as deputy to Bernhard Gerwert.
Airbus suggested the soon to be new CEO will familiarise himself with Airbus Group and the Defence and Space (DS) business between January and March of next year.
During this time, Gerwert will continue to lead Airbus DS as CEO. As of 1 April 2016, Hoke will take over the operational lead and become CEO of Airbus DS, as well as member of the Group Executive Committee.
Gerwert is then expected to support Hoke and Airbus Group CEO, Tom Enders as a senior advisor at least until June 2016.
Enders commented:“Bernhard Gerwert intends to retire mid-2016, a plan he discussed with me already more than two years ago and which I have accepted.
“Bernhard has been working in the aerospace industry for 36 years throughout which he excelled in many positions, culminating in his chief executive role at Airbus DS since 2013. Under his leadership, Defence and Space were merged and successfully restructured, with a clear focus on core business, Military Aircraft and Space.”
He further added: “I am pleased that we found an excellent successor to Bernhard in Dirk Hoke; a man with a very remarkable track record of building and growing businesses throughout four continents; a man with strong experience in high-tech industries, engineering and project management, value-added services and digitalisation. In short, a manager well equipped for a world and business environment that is ever more accelerating in various dimensions.”
Hoke holds a mechanical engineering degree from the Technical University of Braunschweig, Germany.
He began his professional career in the automotive industry at Renault in Paris in 1994 and then joined Siemens AG in 1996, where he occupied various management posts over the last 18 years, including international assignments in Argentina, Austria, China, Morocco, the US as well as leading Siemens’ entire Africa activities, based out of Casablanca and Johannesburg.
