The RAPA group of companies is still managed by the Pausch family today.
The dual management system of Rausch & Pausch SE (holding company) consists of a Management Board and a Supervisory Board. The Management Board is jointly responsible for managing the company. The Supervisory Board monitors, advises and appoints the Management Board.
Chairman of the Management Board
Managing Partner
RAPA Automotive
Dr. Roman Pausch has been managing the company in a dual role since 2010, as CEO of the holding company and Managing Director of the RAPA Automotive division since 2020. He is the representative of the fourth generation of the Pausch family at the helm of the company. Dr. Roman Pausch holds a doctorate in physics and studied financial mathematics at Oxford. He also completed postgraduate business studies in Vancouver and Sydney.
Board member and
Managing Director
RAPA Automotive
Born in Selb, she studied economics at the University of Bayreuth after graduating from high school. Before joining RAPA in 2012, she worked in auditing and tax consulting. Karin Wolf has been appointed a member of the Executive Board and, together with Dr. Roman Pausch, is responsible for managing the operating business of the RAPA Automotive division. Karin Wolf is married and firmly anchored in the Fichtelgebirge.
Independent operating units
Managing Director
RAPA Automotive
Oliver Henkelmann-Mattheus is a child of the Ruhr area and was born in Bottrop. After studying mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University, he also successfully completed a technical business administration degree (IHK) in the so-called Karlstadt. With over twenty years of experience from various positions in the automotive supply industry, including at Schaeffler and AVL, he has been responsible for the international expansion of RAPA Automotive in the USA and China as Head of Sales since 2017. Henkelmann-Mattheus is married and has a daughter.
Oliver Henkelmann-Mattheus has been part of the management team at RAPA Automotive Germany as the third Managing Director since July 1, 2024.
Managing Director
RAPA Automotive USA
Carmen Jordan, a native of Auburn, Alabama, will take over the management of the US location in Auburn with effect from August 1, 2021. Carmen Jordan graduated from Cornell University with a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering. She worked in the steel industry for several years before switching to the automotive sector. After many years working for German companies, Carmen Jordan joined RAPA in February 2016 and headed up the Quality and Supply Chain departments before taking on her new role. Carmen Jordan is married and has three children.
Managing Director
RAPA Automotive China
Zinan Wang, a native of Shenyang, took over the management of the China site with effect from September 1, 2020. After completing a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on automotive engineering and a master’s degree in mechanical engineering with a focus on production technology and globalization at the Institute of Technology in Karlsruhe, he joined RAPA in 2016, initially as a quality engineer, strategic buyer and supplier manager. In 2019, he took over as Head of Business Development China.
Managing Director
RAPA Healthcare & Industry
Jörg Manzer joined the Management Board of RAPA Healthcare & Industry on January 1, 2023. He is the designated successor to Managing Director Reinhard Schlechte, who will retire in mid-2023 after almost 25 years at RAPA. From August 2023, Manzer will have sole responsibility for RAPA’s medical technology and industrial divisions. Jörg Manzer has been in a management position and Head of Key Account Management within the RAPA Group since 2019. He is married and has a son.
RAPA’s Supervisory Board is made up of members of the Pausch family, experienced managers from the private sector, industry experts and companions of the company who support the management team with their expertise. With currently nine members, it monitors and advises the Executive Board of RAPA. The Supervisory Board is chaired by Horst Pausch.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
On November 1, 1969, Horst Pausch joined the company after completing his degree in electrical engineering. Ing. and Dipl. Econom. Ing. at the TH (now TU) Munich into the family business. At this time, his father Albert Pausch was managing RAPA as general partner in the second generation. He became a limited partner in 1970 and a general partner in 1977. Horst Pausch was its sole managing director from the change of name to GmbH in 1986 until 2010. Today, he chairs the company’s Supervisory Board.
Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Ferry Pausch studied business administration and economics in Bamberg and Venice. He then completed a Master’s program in International Relations at Columbia University in New York. He also began his professional career in the USA at the Council on Foreign Relations, a foreign policy think tank. Since then, he has worked for several business associations in Germany, including the Federation of German Industries (BDI), the Association of German Magazine Publishers and the Association of the Migrant Economy.
In 2008, he co-founded the Deutschlandstiftung Integration to support young people with a history of immigration under the patronage of the Federal Chancellor, which he headed as Managing Director until 2017. Pausch then headed a Chinese-German center to deepen economic, cultural and academic relations between the Chinese metropolis of Changde and the capital of Lower Saxony, Hanover. He is an honorary board member of the Association of the Migrant Economy, a member of the board of trustees of the Education Foundation and a member of the German Council on Foreign Relations. Ferry Pausch was included in Capital magazine’s list of 40 executives under 40 in 2013 and 2014 and in Uhlala’s list of Germany’s Top 100 Out Executives in 2018.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Traudl Pausch completed her training as a foreign language correspondent in Frankfurt after finishing secondary school in Frauenwörth am Chiemsee and then worked for the Linseis company in Selb.
Member of the Supervisory Board
Eva Pausch, née Schicker, studied biology with German, art and religion for the teaching profession and passed her first state examination at the Julius Maximilian University of Würzburg in 1998. In the same year, she married Roman Pausch. After her second state examination in 2000, she spent some time abroad in Australia. She lived with her husband and daughter in Vancouver and Sydney for two years. The family returned to Germany in 2004. She has been a teacher at the elementary school in Schönwald since 2008. The marriage produced three children. In 2022, she was appointed to the Supervisory Board as another family member.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
Prof. Dr. Clemens Schmitz-Justen is a global car veteran. He worked for the Bavarian automotive group BMW for almost 20 years with functions in Germany, Great Britain and South Africa, and managed the plant in Spartanburg in the USA until 2007. He then founded a management consultancy, where he assisted RAPA with its relocation to Alabama, and served as honorary German consul for the state of South Carolina. Before returning to Bavaria, he was responsible for car construction at the Californian electric car start-up canoo. Prof. Dr. Schmitz-Justen studied mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University, where he was managing senior engineer at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology. He was an honorary professor at Chemnitz University of Technology and Clemson University. He was a committee member of the US National Academy of Science and is a member of several other German and American supervisory boards in addition to RAPA.
He is married, has two grown-up sons, four pets and never enough old cars in the garage.
Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board
He has been Professor of Finance at Hof University of Applied Sciences since 1999. He is responsible for the management of various degree programs, such as the part-time Bachelor’s degree program in Digital Economy, Digital Administration and the part-time Master’s degree program in Digital Transformation, as well as the part-time qualification programs “Beruf-Plus-Studium” at Hof University of Applied Sciences and the university’s Competence Center for Digital Administration. Prof. Dr. Meuche is not only active in Upper Franconia, he is also Director of Studies at the Nuremberg and Eastern Bavaria Academy of Administration and Business. Meuche takes on advisory and supervisory board activities in various family businesses, including Joh. Winklhofer Beteiligungs GmbH & Co KG.
Chairman of the Supervisory Board
After graduating from high school in Cologne and studying mechanical engineering at RWTH Aachen University with a doctorate at the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, Peter Kirner joined the then Thyssen Industrie AG in 1995 as assistant to the management. Over the course of his 27 years with the Group, he took on international management roles in various areas of the Group. He will initially lead the turbine components business in Europe and the thyssenkrupp/Siemens joint venture Advanced Turbine Components in the US. This was followed by the crankshaft manufacturer thyssenkrupp Gerlach. In 2012, he took over the management of the Access Solutions/Airport Systems business unit at thyssenkrupp Elevator AG. From 2014 to 2021, he is CEO of the suspension manufacturer BILSTEIN. Since 2022, Peter Kirner has been working as an independent executive consultant specializing in market-oriented corporate management, strategic planning and transformation. In addition to his Supervisory Board activities at RAPA S.E., he also holds mandates in other international companies. Peter Kirner is married and has two children.
Michael Marquardt is a passionate market strategist and heads the medical technology and information technology divisions at Prof. Roll & Pastuch – Management Consultants, based in the Munich office. Marquardt has experience from numerous market strategy, sales and pricing projects for international corporations, SMEs and start-ups with local projects in the USA, EU and Asia. Marquardt gives lectures at relevant specialist events and publishes regularly in specialist journals. He holds a Dr. rer. nat., an MBA and a diploma in psychology. He has studied and researched at the University of Konstanz, New York University and AKAD. Marquardt lives on Lake Constance with his wife and two daughters.