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Industrial and engineering founders: A to Hi

51 articles

Emil Škoda

Emil Škoda (1839–1900) was a Bohemian engineer and industrialist who bought the Pilsen machine works in 1869 and built it into the largest arms factory in Austria-Hungary.

Enercon

Enercon is a German manufacturer of onshore wind turbines, founded by engineer Aloys Wobben in Aurich, Lower Saxony, in 1984 and known for gearless direct-drive design.

Ferrovial

Ferrovial is a Spanish-origin infrastructure group founded in 1952, known for operating toll roads like the 407 ETR and airports, and seated in Amsterdam since 2023.

Frank Perkins (engine manufacturer)

Frank Arthur Perkins (1889–1967) was an English engineer who co-founded Perkins Engines in Peterborough in 1932 with Charles Chapman, building it into the world's largest diesel engine maker by 1953.

Franz-Josef Feilmeier

Franz-Josef Feilmeier is a German entrepreneur who founded the battery-storage manufacturer FENECON in Deggendorf in 2011 and won the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2023 award.

Friedhelm Loh

Friedhelm Loh (born 1946) is a German entrepreneur who owns and chairs the Friedhelm Loh Group, whose core company Rittal leads the world in electrical enclosures.

Fritz Sennheiser

Fritz Sennheiser (1912–2010) was a German electrical engineer who founded Sennheiser Electronic near Hanover in 1945, led it until 1982, and built it into a leading maker of microphones and headphones.

Fumio Sakiya

Fumio Sakiya (崎谷文雄), born 1945, is a Japanese entrepreneur who founded Rorze Corporation in Fukuyama, Japan, in 1985, a semiconductor automation equipment maker he led as president until 2015.

Gábor Széles

Gábor Széles (born 1945) is a Hungarian electronics industrialist, chairman and CEO of Videoton Holding in Székesfehérvár, which he bought out of liquidation in 1991 and built into one of Hungary's largest manufacturers.

Georges Claude

Georges Claude (1870–1960) was a French chemist-engineer who co-founded Air Liquide in 1902 and created the commercial neon lighting industry, later convicted of collaboration in 1945.

Gerhard Blum

Gerhard Blum, born 1954, is an Austrian family-business executive who led furniture-fittings maker Julius Blum GmbH in Höchst, Vorarlberg, from 1983 to 2019, growing revenue from about €74 million to €1.888 billion.

Gerhard Sturm

Gerhard Sturm (born 1934) is a German industrialist who co-founded Elektrobau Mulfingen in 1963 and led it for over 40 years as it grew into ebm-papst, a leading fan and motor maker.

Giuseppe De'Longhi

Giuseppe De'Longhi, born in Treviso, Italy, in 1939, is the Italian businessman who built the family appliance firm into De'Longhi S.p.A., known for coffee machines.

Godtfred Kirk Christiansen

Godtfred Kirk Christiansen (1920–1995) was a Danish industrialist who led the LEGO Group in Billund as managing director from 1957, creating the LEGO System and the 1958 brick.

Guillermo Luengo Egido

Guillermo Luengo Egido is a Spanish family-business executive, grandson of SAMCA patriarch Ángel Luengo, who leads the group's €2 billion Green IT Aragón data center project.

Hans-Peter Fischer

Hans-Peter Fischer is a German entrepreneur who co-manages the fischer group, a family-owned maker of welded stainless steel tubes in the Black Forest with over 2,700 employees.

Henry Wilson

Henry Threlfall Wilson (1825–1869) was a Liverpool shipbroker and shipowner who co-founded the White Star Line in 1845 and sold its flag to Thomas Henry Ismay in 1868.

Heraeus

Heraeus is a family-owned German precious metals and technology group headquartered in Hanau, founded from a pharmacy in 1660, with 15,181 employees in roughly 40 countries.

Heraeus family

The Heraeus family is the owner family of Heraeus, a Hanau technology group founded from a 1660 pharmacy and turned industrial by Wilhelm Carl Heraeus in 1851.

Herbert Blum

Herbert Blum, born in 1950, is an Austrian family-business manager who led furniture fittings maker Julius Blum GmbH from 1983, growing it to over €2.4 billion.

Hipolit Cegielski

Hipolit Cegielski (1813–1868) was a Polish philologist, teacher, journalist, and industrialist in Poznań, best known for founding the machine works that continue today as H. Cegielski – Poznań S.A.