Thomas Zettler, major founder of Laytec, is to step down as CEO and president of Laytec AG at the end of this year. Volker Blank and Kolja Haberland will join the management board of Laytec effective January 1st, 2021. Volker, Laytec’s designated CEO, has been working for Laytec since 2012. Kolja, as cofounder, has been with Laytec since 1999 and will continue working as CTO. For supporting this process, Thomas will continue working for Laytec in an advisory role as “Vice-President Strategic Business Development”.

Volker holds a diploma in physics from Goethe University Frankfurt am Main where he worked on spectroscopy applications of ultra-broadband THz pulses. Since 2012 Volker has been responsible at Laytec for sales in Taiwan and China and later in USA/Canada as well. In 2018 Volker was appointed as Director of Marketing and Sales. He will continue heading Laytec`s Sales & Marketing department as part of his CEO duties.

Kolja studied physics at the Technical University of Berlin, where in 2003 he obtained his PhD for his work on 'optical in-situ monitoring during epitaxial growth' - Laytec’s major field of application for many years. As co-founder he has been with Laytec from the very beginning and been working in several responsible positions. Kolja, in addition to his duties in the management board as CTO, will also remain Head of R&D.