Heidelberg's Mainstream salesman replaces Brown as Goss chief executive
Dec 23, 2008 at 05:28 pm by
Staff
Jochen Meissner – who as sales and marketing vice president of Heidelberg was one of the architects of the German press manufacturer’s premature bid for leadership in the newspaper market at DRUPA and Ifra in 2000 – has replaced Bob Brown as chief executive of Goss International.
Meissner had served as executive vice president and chief operating officer since 2002, when he joined Goss International, of which Heidelberg came away with a 15 per cent holding following its sale of the former Heidelberg Web assets.
Brown will continue as a board member, and will focus on “strategic market issues and customer initiatives”, a company statement says.
“It has been a privilege to lead such a proud, technology leading organization and to work with great employees, printers and publishers around the world,” Brown says. “I look forward to continuing to work with Jochen on a variety of initiatives.”
No reason for the changeover is given. Meissner’s experience in the industry also includes management and executive positions with manroland, and his profile is to be found on social and business networking websites including LinkedIn, Facebook and Jigsaw.
At DRUPA in Düsseldorf in 2000, Heidelberg launched the 4/1 (double-width, one around) press format concept with its new Mainstream 80 press, based on the gapless Sunday technology of its Harris Web acquisition. And at IfraExpo, it was Meissner who followed up with the announcement of a triple-wide Triliner variant.
Goss International chairman Ed Padilla says Meissner has been instrumental in strengthening Goss’s global organisation and its innovative product portfolio over the past six years.
“We are fortunate to have a proven, experienced leader prepared to take our company forward into its next phase,” he says.
Goss – which supplies web offset presses, finishing systems and aftermarket services for newspaper, magazine, catalogue and other commercial printing applications – has nine manufacturing facilities in the USA, Europe and Asia and generated more than US$1.1 billion in sales in 2007.
