New Head of Marketing and Sales for the HABA Brand
On January 1, 2019, Wolfgang Pöhlau became the head of HABA Marketing and Sales. He succeeds Michael Hopf, who until his retirement will act as a consultant for the entire HABA Family of Companies. Michael Hopf began his professional career in 1982 as an assistant to the head of the HABA Sales Department before he assumed management of HABA Sales and Marketing in 1990. During the past four decades, he has collected an enormous amount of knowledge about markets and product lines and has always demonstrated a very keen sense for the success of new products. “Michael Hopf has contributed significantly to the HABA brand and has made it into what it is today. HABA stands for products that have delighted children for many generations and have provided their parents the assurance that their children’s development is fostered from the beginning in an age-appropriate way,” said CEO Karl Fischer. “I would like to express my warmest thanks to Michael Hopf personally and in the name of the entire HABA Family of Companies.”
Wolfgang Pöhlau, originally from Nuremberg, received a degree in chemical engineering with a specialization in food processing technology from the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He began his professional career with Nestlé and worked for several years as a productivity engineer in South America, where he gained a great deal of experience in the areas of employee management and organizational efficiency. He then worked for Nestlé Suisse S.A. in the field of marketing and product management for frozen products. His next professional position led him to Staedtler Mars GmbH, where he headed the Ink Jet Business Unit. In 2010 he founded Babyviduals GmbH, a start-up company that specialized in organic frozen baby food. After being self-employed for eight years, he began working in May 2018 in the HABA Family of Companies, where as of January he became the head of HABA Marketing and Sales. “Strong brands are my passion,” according to Pöhlau. “It is therefore a very great honor for me to further enhance, in my opinion, Germany’s most exciting toy brand and to be allowed to lead it into the future.” He sees the accelerated pace of the 21st century as one of the brand’s major challenges. He therefore considers it all the more important to strengthen brands and thereby offer customers guidance.
About HABA
HABA has been accompanying children on all their forays for over 80 years – with games and toys that challenge and encourage and above all are a lot of fun. The result is 400 new products every year: the familiar games in the yellow box and toys made of wood and fabric as well as imaginative home accessories, exciting books, and beautiful gifts for children. HABA supplies retailers domestically and internationally and has subsidiaries in France, the U.S., and Hong Kong. In addition, customers in Germany, Austria, and France can order a wide variety of products in the HABA Online Shop. You will find detailed information about the company’s history, philosophy, production, and much more at www.haba.de/unternehmen
