Claus Möhlenkamp takes office as the Deputy Chairman of the Management Board
As 2025 begins, the Freudenberg Group is introducing a change in leadership. Claus Möhlenkamp joined the Management Board of Freudenberg SE and the Management Board of Freudenberg & Co. on January 1, 2025. The move is part of a carefully planned appointment to the company’s top position. On June 30, 2025, Dr. Mohsen Sohi is retiring after more than a decade as CEO. ** A smooth transition
Dr. Mohsen Sohi and Claus Möhlenkamp are defining the transition in close coordination with one another. The objective is to ensure a smooth knowledge transfer. They are jointly visiting key Freudenberg locations in the United States, India, Japan and other core markets. The process not only underscores the company’s global orientation but continuity and stability in its leadership as well. “I am very much looking forward to my new role as Deputy CEO of the Freudenberg Group and the opportunity, together with Mohsen Sohi, to shape this transition,” Möhlenkamp said. “Our long professional cooperation, which began more than 20 years ago, has defined my development. I consider it a great honor to repay the trust of the company.”
Claus Möhlenkamp: shaping Freudenberg and industry
With more than 30 years of experience in various roles at Freudenberg, Claus Möhlenkamp brings in-depth knowledge and the capacity to innovate to his new position. As the former CEO of Freudenberg Sealing Technologies, he has made a significant contribution to the Group’s successful development and has worked to shape the transformation of the auto industry. Möhlenkamp emphasizes that trust, responsibility and innovation, each a core company value, will characterize his leadership in the future as well. “It is important to me to maintain Freudenberg’s long-standing values while promoting a forward-looking company culture.”
Gratitude to Dr. Mohsen Sohi
Dr. Mohsen Sohi leaves behind a strong foundation for the future. He is only the second executive at the head of the company who had not been a member of its founding family and is only the seventh CEO in its175-year history. Under his leadership, the Freudenberg Group continued to develop strategically, optimized processes and pressed ahead with digitalization. One of his main projects was the organizational reform program Fokus 2.0. It came right at the start of his tenure and culminated in a new corporate governance structure. The goal of the readjustment was to increase the entrepreneurship of the business units, strengthen the Group’s orientation to customers and the market, and build up its ability to innovate. Operational business responsibility was assigned to the individual Freudenberg Business Groups. Since then, the Freudenberg Group’s leadership, in the form of the Management Board, has focused on the company’s strategic orientation.
Group-wide process-optimization and efficiency programs went hand in hand with Fokus 2.0. The new “House of Excellence” outlines the key elements for the company’s successful development. They include strengthening the Freudenberg umbrella brand as an external presence. Sohi also pressed ahead with the digitalization of the company with the clear objective of creating added value for customers and increasing internal efficiency.
Over the last 10 years, the Freudenberg Group has more than doubled its revenue and its profits. Based on the principle “less administration, more innovation,” the company has increased its investments in research and development by more than 10 percent each year, to the current level of more than 600 million euros annually. It has also created a company-wide platform for future technologies. Sohi resolutely pursued the goal of balanced regional positioning where three global regions – the Americas, Europe and Asia – each provide one-third of the company’s revenue.
The sustainability strategy adopted during his tenure outlines the company’s step-by-step path toward climate neutrality in the year 2045. In keeping with Group’s long-term orientation, projects are also dealing with Freudenberg’s positioning to offer the right solutions for the year 2050. Sohi has also made the company’s traditionally strong social commitment more systematic and global. In addition, his name is closely associated with the company’s Talent Management System. Freudenberg also fills leadership positions largely from its own ranks – with appointments that are more balanced and diverse than ever before.