Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler honored as first ¡°family entrepreneur of the year¡°

The highest award in connection with the newly created prize of ¡°Family business entrepreneurs of the year¡° was conferred yesterday on Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler. This prize is awarded jointly by the Business Magazine impulse and the INTES Akademie f¨¹r Familienunternehmen (German academy for family businesses) at the Bensberg castle near Cologne in recognition of family entrepreneurs for excellence in effective future oriented steps ensuring the sustained growth of their companies. The decisive criteria in selecting the winner from among 70 candidates, the must successful family businesses in Germany, were entrepreneurial profile, sustainability and profitable growth. ¡±This is quite an honor for me and an impetus to continue to dedicate my energies to the success of the company¡°, said Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler. Maria-Elisabeth Schaeffler and her son Georg are personally responsible for the INA-Holding Schaeffler KG. Together with the INA, LuK and FAG companies the Schaeffler Group belongs to the worldwide leading providers of the rolling bearing industry and internationally is among the top automotive suppliers. After the death of her husband and company founder Dr. h.c. Georg Schaeffler, Maria- Elisabeth Schaeffler resolved to continue his life work. ¡±Within a period of just eight years she has evolved her own entrepreneurial profile and taken fundamental steps for INA¡¯s further development to become a group of world stature¡°, as professor Peter May put it in his laudation. Essential steps to develop the company further were the acquisition of all shares of the LuK-Group, a worldwide leading specialist for clutch and transmissions, and of the FAG Kugelfischer AG, Schweinfurt, the latter ideally complementing the product portfolio being after its integration and elevating the company to the second position among the rolling bearing manufacturers. The responsibility for the operative business of the Schaeffler Group lies with Dr. J¨¹rgen M. Geißinger. Dr. Geißinger is also strategically developing the company in cooperation with the partner companies in a ¡°professionally symbiotic manner¡°.