The new head of human resources for ZF comes from the competitor Hella.
(Photo: PR)
Stuttgart Lea Corzilius will be Chief Human Resources Officer at ZF, Germany’s second largest automotive supplier, on August 1st. The doctor of economics recently turned 34 years old – and thus the youngest member of the board of a large German company.
Until the end of April, Corzilius was Head of Human Resources at the Westphalian automotive supplier Hella. There had been a number of management changes there in the past few months after the takeover by the French Faurecia group.
“In Lea Corzilius, we have gained a highly competent successor to Sabine Jaskula,” said ZF Supervisory Board Chairman Heinrich Hiesinger. She knows the supplier industry and its current challenges very well and can therefore complement Holger Klein’s management team without any start-up time and set her own impetus. Predecessor Jaskula switched from Continental to ZF in 2019 and announced in February that her contract, which expired at the end of 2023, would not be extended.
In the automotive supply industry, several HR managers have left early in the past few months. Most recently, Filiz Albrecht left her post at Bosch at the end of March before the end of the contract period. Anke Felder, Mahle’s first woman, also left earlier. Continental HR Manager Ariane Reinhart, who has been in office since 2014, has proven to be a constant in the industry.
In Corzilius, a woman from another generation is now coming to a top position. A millennial on paper, she is only a few years away from the GenZ, who as specialists formulate different demands on the work environment and to which HR managers also have to adapt.
A delicate task at ZF
“With her, we will continue on the path of transformation while always keeping an eye on the interests of the employees,” says Andreas Brand, representative of the Zeppelin Foundation of the city of Friedrichshafen, which holds 93.8 percent of the shares in ZF.
The quote from the mayor of Friedrichshafen touches on the delicate aspect of this job. After all, the owner of the large corporation is the city of Friedrichshafen, with a head who is dependent on the votes of the citizens in elections. The intertwining of interests between the employee camp and the municipality on the capital side is unique in Germany and does not make it easy for the HR manager to push through unpopular cuts in staff, especially at the company headquarters in Friedrichshafen.
Technically brings a lot with you. Corzilius studied economics at the WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management and the HEC Paris and received his doctorate from the Technical University of Dortmund. In addition, she completed a Master of Laws degree in law at the University of Heidelberg.
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She began her career from 2011 to 2017 as a management consultant at McKinsey & Company in Frankfurt and Düsseldorf. CEO Klein also has a past at McKinsey. In 2017, Corzilius moved to the automotive supplier Hella and held various positions in the company’s human resources department, up to and including labor director. There she had global responsibility for the HR functions.
ZF Supervisory Board Chairman Hiesinger is convinced that the new board member will bring “sound specialist knowledge in human resources, expertise in our industry but also a lot of fresh wind to ZF in order to master the current and upcoming challenges”.
Like all companies in the German automotive supplier industry, ZF is also under enormous pressure to adapt due to the transformation to electromobility. In 2022, the global company with around 165,000 employees worldwide achieved sales of 44 billion euros.
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