In the driver’s seat: Mathias Hüttenrauch

He’s a self-confessed ‘car guy’ who’s made his passion into his career. Mathias Hüttenrauch is surrounded by vehicles and their parts every day, something he wouldn’t change for the world.

A trained mechanic with an automotive engineering degree under his belt, as well as 2 MBAs, he today blends his practical and management experience as the head of Koninklijke Nedschroef Holding (Nedschroef) – a leading supplier of automotive fasteners.

It’s a business that strives to achieve the greatest efficiencies while also thinking outside the box, benefiting major clients that include the likes of BMW, Audi, Mercedes and Porsche. 

In conversation with The CEO Magazine, Mathias shares details about Nedschroef’s foray into the aviation and aerospace industry, insight into the best decision he’s ever made, and his thoughts on huge changes set to happen within the automotive industry (hint: it includes self-driving cars).

The CEO Magazine: How does Nedschroef stay at the forefront
of the automotive industry?

Mathias: Innovation really is key. I know you hear that from a lot of companies, but for us it really is. We need to develop strategies where we use our know-how not only in fasteners but in other applications or markets too.

Whenever our clients need critical connections or things fixed urgently, Nedschroef is a good partner to deal with. We’re moving away from being a mass-volume manufacturer towards being a true engineering partner.

We’re moving away from being a mass-volume manufacturer towards being a true engineering partner.

You won’t find our footprint in a low-cost country set-up. We need to compete on innovation and make sure that the locations we operate in have a bright future. You only have one chance to compete on innovative products, so that’s a really important area for us. 

Why was aviation and aerospace identified as an industry of interest for Nedschroef? 

We always had a little project running, but we weren’t really into the full swing of it until about late 2013. We finished a study about the market and then decided to start executing the move into the aviation sector.

Similar to automotive, the quality standards, certificates and level of continuous quality support is highly important. The biggest difference is that the lead times can be much longer and sometimes the volumes are fragmented, so you have to be very flexible. 

What’s the best decision you ever made?

For me, it was to understand that the size of a company isn’t what matters. Before joining Nedschroef as CEO in 2011, I had worked in much larger organisations. It took me a while to realise, but in smaller workplaces there’s a greater sense of freedom. Of course, you can have that in large operations too, but sometimes you’re not as free to move and you can’t get into entrepreneurial responsibilities as easily.

You’ve said the car industry will undergo a drastic transformation. What changes should we expect?

Yes, I believe there’ll be major changes in the car industry over the next 10 to 15 years, driven by 3 trends. The first is emission-free mobility; then there’s connectivity; and the third is autonomous driving. I’m not so sure that our grandchildren will even have driving lessons in urban areas because the way I see it happening is that you mightn’t even own a car anymore.

Rather, you’ll use automatic mobility services and pay on use. The problem with trends like this is that people often tend to think quite linear; they just extrapolate the past into the future, especially for guys like me who have been in the industry for so long. What we need is to allow ourselves to think exponentially. 

Your passion for cars has led you to race for Aston Martin and now with Porsche; is that correct?

It’s a bit of a hobby I started years ago, racing for different teams. I think once you race all the places in Europe, then you find that there’s one very special place. For me, it’s Nordschleife, Nürburgring. It’s not a normal racetrack – it’s 24 kilometres long – and that is where I race, almost exclusively, in a long-distance race series called VLN.

Is car racing a passion, then?

Yes, of course; it has to be when you’re a ‘car guy’! I started doing it 20 years
ago. It’s a passion that also gives you the chance to be totally at one with the car you’re driving. It’s a good place to be on your own and just think about the next curve and nothing else.