Wilfried Schmitz founded a sales company with the Swiss sensor manufacturer Contrinex and a silent partner in December 1997 with the two independent business divisions of sensor technology and cooling bodies. In 2013, the sensor division was spun off into the newly founded company Contrinex Sensor. The heat sink division remained with Contrinex, which renamed itself CTX Thermal Solutions.

CTX grew with the increasing digitalisation of industry and everyday life and the accompanying rise in demand for thermal management. At the same time, new markets emerged, such as the cooling of LEDs, which successively replaced conventional incandescent, neon and halogen lights.

At the end of 2021, Jens Mirau joined the company as managing director for operations. In 2022, CTX founded a subsidiary in China and Wilfried Schmitz, as strategic CEO, concentrated exclusively on projects such as the further internationalisation of CTX, the planning and realisation of strategic investments in other companies in the industry and succession planning.