Executive Management for all Surteco operations in North America will be lead by Michael Phillips as CEO. This is in line with the new Surteco worldwide strategy of local management and as well focusing on future growth and investments in the North American Market. Our three stra-tegic North American business groups, Printing, Foils, and Edgings will all fall under the same leadership and philosophy of service.

Mike joined the start up company Linnemann USA in May 1988. He has led the North American Paper Division through the merger with Bausch to form Bausch-Linnemann North America, the acquisition of Coastal Paper, the asset purchase of CDM and the integration of Suddekor LLC into the current Surteco North America. Mike is active in industry Associations and has served on the Board of Directors for the Laminating Materials Association, the Decorative Surfaces Con-ference and the Composite Panel Association. This organizational change will also place the Doellken and Canplast product groups under the same domestic leadership.

Mike will report directly to Wolfgang Moyses, CEO of Surteco Group SE. We are also expanding our North American Board of Directors which will provide advisory and legal services to both Mike and Wolfgang. The initial members of this board will be:

Lawrence (Larry) Schorr, Non Executive Chairman (Retired CEO of Simona America Inc. – see biography below.)
Michael Phillips, CEO Surteco North America
Wolfgang Moyses, CEO Surteco Group SE
Andreas Pötz, CFO Surteco Group SE
Maximillian Betzler, CSO Decoratives Europe

Max will step down as current CEO for North America and will focus on the ex-panding Surteco Decoratives operation in Europe. We appreciate Max’s lead-ership in North America during the past three years which has certainly seen unprecedented challenges.

As Non-Executive Chairman of the North American Board, Larry Schorr brings extensive business experience. His strategic advice will be extremely valuable to Mike and Wolfgang as we execute our plans for future growth in North America.

Mr. Schorr is the retired CEO of Simona America Group (2014-2020) a wholly owned US subsidiary of Simona AG where Wolfgang Moyses was the former CEO. Prior to joining Simona, Mr. Schorr was the principal owner and CEO of Boltaron Performance Products, a high performance plastics manufacturing company specializing in aviation products, which was acquired by Simona AG in 2014. Following the acquisition, Mr. Schorr successfully led a $150 million group of three US plastic sheet manufacturing companies for Simona.

Mr. Schorr has also served as President and CEO of Resource Recycling Technologies Inc, an American Stock Exchange Company that was acquired by WMX Technologies Inc. Prior to that he was a managing law partner of a regional law firm specializing in corporate law.

Mr. Schorr has been a Board Member since 1985 and is the current Lead Director at Dick’s Sporting Goods, the largest sporting goods retailer in the world and listed on the New York Stock Exchange.