Every year since 1992, manager magazin has elected outstanding figures from the German
business sector to its Business Hall of Fame. In 2017, along with Heinz Hermann Thiele,
mechanical engineering pioneer Martin Herrenknecht and long-standing adidas boss
Herbert Hainer entered the symbolic Hall of Fame.
Klaus Mangold, Co-Chairman of Rothschild investment bank, commended Heinz Hermann
Thiele as an exceptional entrepreneur and driving force. Thiele, the pilot and proprietor of
Knorr-Bremse AG, a world-leading manufacturer of braking systems and supplier of additional sub-systems for rail and commercial vehicles, had established an impressive record of corporate growth, Mangold said.
Under Thiele’s aegis, he added, the company had seen sales soar from EUR 180 million to
EUR 6 billion, driven by sheer power of innovation. In the “Thiele Era” spanning 30 years
(1985-2015), Knorr-Bremse grew from a medium-sized enterprise in a precarious commercial situation into a globally successful corporate group which continues to deliver pioneering technology that makes for greater safety by road and rail. Every day, more than one billion people around the world put their trust in systems made by Knorr-Bremse.
