Speakers and Chairs Bios

Andreas Ludwig is currently Executive Chairman of the privately owned Umdasch Group AG, headquartered in Amstetten, Austria. Umdasch Group operates 2 divisions as Holding Company, Doka – world leader in system formworks for the concrete construction industry and the Umdasch Shopfitting Group which builds both food and non food retail stores for a varity of retailers. From 2010 until 2015 he was also Chief Executive Officer of the Group and since 2014 also lead the Doka Formworks Division. In a corporate restructuring in 2015 the Formwork and the Shopfitting Business were separated into two complete stand alone divisions, both as wholly owned subsidiaries of Umdasch Group AG.

Prior to joining Umdasch Andreas Ludwig was Chairman of the Executive Board & Chief Executive Officer of Zumtobel Group, a leading global lighting company, headquartered in Dornbirn, Austria.

He was asked to lead the management team of Zumtobel by the US private equity firm KKR and the Zumtobel family in 2003 with the task to turn around the group’s failing financial performance. After successfully returning the company to profitability he took the group public in an IPO 2006 on the Vienna stock exchange.

Before assuming this responsibility, Andreas Ludwig was Managing Director of UBS Warburg, one of the world’s leading international investment banks based in London, as Senior Coverage Banker for industrial clients in Europe.

Before April 2001, Andreas Ludwig was Chief Executive Officer of Tyrolit Industries, an industrial manufacturing company headquartered near Innsbruck, Austria. Tyrolit is part of the Swarovski group of companies, the largest manufacturer of crystal in the world. Tyrolit Industries offers a complete assortment of abrasives products used in a variety of applications and operated 17 production plants and a number of sales offices worldwide.

He returned to his native Austria in January 1994. Prior to joining Tyrolit, he was Executive Vice President of Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Zale Corporation, the world’s largest jewelry retailer in the United States. He was named to this position in January 1992 to lead the company through its financial restructuring and Chapter 11 proceedings and to take it public in an IPO on NASDAQ in 1993.

Shortly after Zale Corporation emerged from Chapter 11 in July 1993, Andreas Ludwig was nominated by the Company’s Board of Directors to serve as its Chief Operating Officer, while the Board conducted an executive search for a new Chief Executive Officer.

Prior to joining Zale in 1991, Andreas Ludwig held the position of Vice President Finance for Daniel Swarovski Corporation AG, the international management company, which serves as headquarter for the Swarovski Group, located in Switzerland.

Previously, he worked in the Finance Department of Swarovski America, the U.S. subsidiary headquartered in Rhode Island, as assistant to the Chief Financial Officer.

Before joining the Swarovski Group of companies, he worked with a CPA firm in Vienna, Austria.

Dr. Ludwig earned both a graduate degree in business and his doctorate of law from the University of Vienna. He received an undergraduate diploma from the Vienna Business and Trade Academy. He also attended Harvard Business School receiving a Professional Management Degree.

Andreas Ludwig and his wife Cara have a daughter, Anna, and two sons, Sebastian and Patrick, and live in Vienna, Austria.