Board and Extended Management of abat

Andreas Arp studied physics and mathematics at the Universities of Bremen and Bordeaux. In 1998 he started working for SAP SE as a software developer in the R/3 standard development division. In 2001 he moved to abat AG, working as a senior consultant, senior developer and project manager on numerous SAP projects for Daimler AG. He has been on the management team at abat since 2008, and became a board member in 2014. As well as a range of duties within the management team, he is the Key Account Manager for Daimler AG. The physics graduate specialises in the planning and implementation of highly complex IT projects.

In addition to the Sales and Marketing divisions, Peter Grendel leads the development of the production control and management software PLUS as well as customer projects. The business graduate previously held a range of management roles at SAP SE including the roles of Vice President for Support Management and Sales Director for Wholesale Customers. He was responsible for implementing large-scale projects in the automotive sector, such as AmSECAM for Daimler AG. Since 2010, Grendel has been a managing partner of abat+, a subsidiary of abat, and he was appointed to the board of abat AG at the start of 2015.

Björn Lampe began his career as a technical IT assistant and, after training as a wholesaler, he studied business administration at Bremen University of Applied Sciences. He joined abat for his final year project in 2001 and since then has worked as senior consultant, senior developer and project manager on numerous SAP projects for VW and Audi. He has been on the management team at abat since 2008 and was appointed to the board at the start of 2014. As well as a range of duties within the management team, he is the Key Account Manager for the VW Group. As a graduate in business administration – with 20 years of experience as a software developer and system architect – Björn Lampe specialises in agile project management.

Hinrich Meisterknecht is responsible for major customers from the automotive sector and for the development of the abat locations in Puebla in Mexico, Tuscaloosa and Atlanta in the USA. Before the foundation of abat, this electrical engineer held various executive positions at VW GEDAS GmbH. There, he mainly cooperated on the development of the SAP division and implemented numerous international projects. Before that, he worked at LSI Logic Products GmbH as Software Engineer.

Jörg Pieper has been part of the abat family since 2002. He started his career at abat as a developer for integration technologies. Over the years, he built up knowledge in various areas.
He has worked on various projects as a developer, consultant and project manager, with a focus on the automotive sector, for various customers. His specialty is integration and strategy consulting in complex SAP environments. In addition to several projects in other European countries, Jörg Pieper was Managing Director of abatUS from 2012 to 2016. On site, he was responsible for the establishment and development of the American subsidiary as well as for the support of US customers.
After his return from the USA, he moved from the position of Managing Director of abatUS to the extended management of the German parent company abat AG. This was followed by a move to the Executive Board in 2023.
 

Holger Pralle is responsible for major customers from the automotive sector and for the development of the abat location Minsk in Belarus. Up to the foundation of the company, this electrical and industrial engineer held various executive positions at VW GEDAS GmbH. There, he was responsible for numerous international SAP projects. Before that, he worked at different positions at LSI Logic Products GmbH.

In 1998, Corinna Pralle was recruited by the management of the newly founded abat AG (at that time Act GmbH) to set up the department of accounting. In prior years, the companies such as Trigon CC and Adidas benefited from her skills. Today, Corinna Pralle is responsible for the wage and salary settlement, performance of the contract in human resources, trainings and personnel management on the internal side.

Olga Winterhoff has been an integral part of abat AG since 2013. During her master's degree in logistics, she joined abat as a working student. Over the years, she built up her experience in various industries such as automotive and retail and has advanced the TM team in various roles as senior consultant, solution architect and project manager for SAP Transportation Management. In addition to her understanding of processes, her strengths lie in the digitalization of supply chains, as well as the design of logistics applications in UI5.
Olga Winterhoff has been a member of the management team since 2022. In addition to this role, she is also part of the innovation management team and champions the abat new Work philosophy.

Thomas Baldauf began his professional career in 1984 with a classical apprenticeship in crafts and subsequent studies in electrical engineering. As his career developed, in 1997 he chose to detour from working as a mining electrical engineer in the Saarland underground to enter the SAP business. In 1998 he joined T-Systems and in 2008 came to abat AG. The Senior Developer / Senior Consultant / Project Manager built his extensive knowledge serving as a critical resource successfully delivering many global SME and large-scale projects. Thomas Baldauf is responsible for major projects and has in-depth knowledge of logistics and global parts shipping, particularly in the automotive industry.

Thomas Bätge gained his first SAP experience as a key user, later as a module manager and project manager, and then by a medium-sized automotive supplier.
The company manager came to abat in 2001, where he worked as a logistics consultant and developer in various projects, among others at BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen.
Since 2009 he has been responsible for the quality management of abat AG and is responsible for topics such as security, software architecture and performance in our customer projects. From 2012 he took over the structure and organization of the internal training management, which coordinates internal trainings within the abat group.
In addition to these tasks, Thomas Bätge is now responsible for Nearshoring, AMS and SAP Basis Services as well as for the development and coordination of the BELabat located in Minsk, Belarus.
With the foundation of abat LT in Vilnius, Lithuania, he took over the management of this location.

Christian Diestelkamp has worked in the IT area since 1991. In parallel with school and studies, he continued to pursue his passion in bringing PCs, servers and networks to fly for small and large businesses. Process orientation and focus on customer value were his strengths already then. In 2003, he completed his studies in Business Informatics in Bremerhaven and London with a degree dissertation on “loading ramps planning” at abat AG. Since that time, logistics has been his specialist field. Warehouse and Transport Management with SAP constantly accompanied him in his activities as a Senior Developer, Senior Consultant and Project Manager. Christian Diestelkamp has been a member of the Management since 2009; and among other things, he has been responsible for the SAP Transport Management and Innovation Management business areas. With about 25 years of experience, this commercial computer scientist becomes a specialist for logistic processes, and he is always able to think „outside the box“ as well as to look deep into the technical potpourri of the SAP world.

Harald Lothspeich joined abat AG in 2017. He started as a software developer in the 80s - at that time still on the mainframe. In the following years he advanced from a developer through the work of an IT architect to a specialist consultant in logistics and project manager of various projects. In 1999 he found his way to SAP. In various logistics projects he was responsible for the migration of legacy systems to the new SAP system. He was also responsible for the cut over planning and control of the project go-lives. From 2003, he then built up the SAP area at a Munich IT service provider before working there for 7 years - until 2016 - as a managing director. After a year of sabbatical, Harald Lothspeich took over management of the Bavarian branch of abat AG. Here he mainly deals with customers from southern Germany.

Dag Oeing has been a member of the abat family since 2002. After studying business administration in Osnabrück and Nuremberg, he began his professional career in 1999 as an SAP consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Then he joined abat, where he initially worked on various projects, especially as a consultant and project manager for medium-sized companies, before taking on responsibility for sales in 2009. In his role, he supports many customers, mainly in the transition from SAP ECC to S/4HANA, to define an optimal procedure for the changeover for the respective company.

After graduating with a degree in Industrial Engineering, specializing in Software Engineering, Hans Schmill had first contact with SAP development at KPMG consultancy in 1995. Then change to HP, where he worked in international SAP consulting projects. Since 1999 employee of the abat AG, where he was responsible for the customer Deutsche Post/DHL, for which he carried out projects worldwide. In 2008 he joined the management of abat AG. Since recently he has been responsible for customers in the German Armed Forces environment and the development of the new Information Security business unit (ISO 27001 and TISAX®).

Adrian Stucke started his pass at abat AG in 2001 as a software developer, following his studies in business administration (focus: business informatics, controlling). He expanded and changed his field of tasks all the time motivated by his activities in service, logistics and automotive projects. The senior developer / senior consultant / project manager is today an expert for complex software architectures and agile as well as classic project methods. Through his many years of experience in the project, he has, in addition to his IT expertise, a special knowledge of the logistics and pre-production processes of the automotive industry.

Since joining the management of abat AG, Adrian Stucke has been taking over various tasks in this environment. Along with that, he continues to invest the bulk of his time and energy in project work, activities with colleagues and customers.

Ingo Thiel-Engel, was born in 1967, successfully completed an apprenticeship as a mechanical engineer and graduated in 1995 with a degree in business informatics from the Bremerhaven University. Since then he has been working in the IT sector. After joining abat AG in 2002, he specialized in implementing and managing complex software development and implementation projects in the logistics and automotive sectors.

He has been working for our customer Volkswagen since 2005 and, in addition to his successful project work, takes on key account and personnel development tasks. He was appointed to the management of our subsidiary Combat in 2015 and has been a member of the management of abat AG since 2020.

Mario Kleber is managing director for abat+ GmbH. His focus is on the areas of finance, controlling, human resources and customer support in the MES environment (Manufacturing Execution System).

Previously, he worked for Siemens Nixdorf and for a subsidiary of IBM in the field of mainframe computing and then moved to SAP in software development.

Mario Kleber was born in 1973 and completed his IT training in 1991. He started his professional career in 1991 at Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG.

At abat+ GmbH, Harald Ströher is responsible for Application Maintenance Services PLUS, financials as well as controlling and risk management. This mathematician held various positions, lastly as Development Manager, and bore the operative responsibility for PLUS within SAP SE. He was technical in-charge of many PLUS projects at Daimler AG and made, in this position, a significant contribution to the design and architecture of production control.

Henrik Lienstromberg started his career at abat AG directly after graduating from high school in 2009 as a dual student. As a computer science student he developed customer-specific SAP enhancements in small projects. After completing his studies, he stayed with the company and switched to consulting in the logistics area. There he has worked in various positions as a developer, solution architect and project manager and contributed his technical and process knowledge to customer projects.

His professional career at abat continued with numerous international projects and a two-year stay in the USA. From 2017 to 2019 he completed a part-time Master of Business Administration (MBA). Since 2022 he is responsible for setting up the subsidiary in China.

Thomas Bätge gained his first SAP experience as a key user, later as a module manager and project manager, and then by a medium-sized automotive supplier.
The company manager came to abat in 2001, where he worked as a logistics consultant and developer in various projects, among others at BMW, Daimler and Volkswagen.
Since 2009 he has been responsible for the quality management of abat AG and is responsible for topics such as security, software architecture and performance in our customer projects. From 2012 he took over the structure and organization of the internal training management, which coordinates internal trainings within the abat group.
In addition to these tasks, Thomas Bätge is now responsible for Nearshoring, AMS and SAP Basis Services as well as for the development and coordination of the BELabat located in Minsk, Belarus.
With the foundation of abat LT in Vilnius, Lithuania, he took over the management of this location.

Alexy Prakopchyk has been working for BELabat since its foundation in 2004. He started as an ABAP developer until he was called to be the managing director of BELabat in 2009.
Prior to his position at BELabat he was an ABAP Developer at IBA in Belarus, which he started right after he earned his two degrees at the Belarussian State University in 2002, where he graduated in computer science and economics.

Swetlana van Vliet is the founder and managing director of ID-Impuls GmbH, a subsidiary of abat AG. She studied information systems and software engineering in Oldenburg and worked as a research assistant on various research projects. For over 15 years, she has been working on the potential of modern software solutions for greater sustainability and climate protection.

Together with her husband, Sebastian van Vliet, she was awarded the EXIST start-up grant in 2015. The start-up grant supports young founders in the realization of innovative start-ups and formed the first cornerstone for the foundation of ID-Impuls GmbH. ID-Impuls has been part of the abat family since 2017 and develops its own products that support companies in achieving their sustainability goals.

Sebastian van Vliet is the founder and managing director of ID-Impuls GmbH, a subsidiary of abat AG. He studied computer science in Oldenburg, worked as a research assistant in various research projects and has been working on the potential of IT-supported, sustainable development of companies and societies for over 15 years.

Together with his wife, Swetlana van Vliet, he successfully acquired the EXIST start-up grant in 2015 to develop the first version of ID-Report, our innovative sustainability management and reporting solution, and to lay the foundation for the founding of ID-IMPULS. ID-IMPULS has been part of the abat family since 2017.

Victa started her career at abat in 2014 as Business Development and Sales Manager for Mexico. Since 2017 she is part of the Management of the Mexico office and has as main fields of activities, Business Development, Sales, Customer Care, and Innovation. Since 2022 Victa is Vice President of abat North America, which includes the Mexico and US locations and since 2023, she is also director of the Mexico office.

Previously, Victa worked at Continental ContiTech in Hannover as Business Development and North America Sales Manager, after completing her master’s degree in 2012 in European Studies at the Leibniz Universität Hannover with a focus on International Business, Economics and History. 

Rainer Kellas is the Managing Director of the then newly established MEXabat since 2007.
He has more than 20 years of experience in the SAP implementations, developments and AMS. After working for several years in Germany and for quite some time in China, he is in Mexico for more than 20 years now.

At abat in Mexico, Axel Schier is responsible for the Sales, Business Development and SAP Consulting divisions. Following his studies, the computer science graduate held a range of positions and duties at VW gedas in the areas of software engineering, project management and quality management. He then spent many years working for gedas in Mexico. During that time he was responsible for Quality Management, Key Account Management and the ERP/SCM (Latin America region) Business Unit. After managing the IT and Billing division of a regional German telecommunications company, Axel Schier joined abat in 2014.