Rolf Schnellecke

1944 Born in September 12, in the town of the KdF car near Fallersleben, today Wolfsburg

1967 Joined M. Schnellecke KG as limited partner

1968 Founded the sole company Rolf Schnellecke, from 2007 Schnellecke Group AG & Co. KG

1975 Studied law and economics in Göttingen and Hamburg (second state examination)

1970 - 1986 Joined the public administration as a lawyer, head of department and head of unit at municipal and state level                          

1985 New forwarding and logistics centre Wolfsburg - Sandkamp

1986 - 1995 Assistant Secretary of the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony in Hanover and delegate for the establishment of the state government of Saxony-Anhalt in Magdeburg       

1988 - 1992 First larger logistics projects for the automotive industry, expansion to the new German states, first LVZ (logistics supply centre) in Zwickau

1990 Schnellecke takes over the assembly of door and side panels as the first major outsourcing project for VW      

1995 - 2011 Pincipal and mayor of the city of Wolfsburg  

2007 Chairmanship of the supervisory board of Schnellecke Group AG & Co. KG

2008 Appointed Honorary Professor at the Technical University of Wildau 

1992 - 2015 More than 70 company foundations worldwide

Schnellecke is married for the second time and has four children.

Voluntary activities (excerpt):

Winner of the Georgius Agricola prize of the City of Glauchau/ Saxony, Comtur Order of the Italian Republic, honorary citizen of the city of Wolfsburg, honorary professor at the Technical University of Wildau, member of the federal commission for family businesses and SMEs, its chairman since 2015.

• Rolf Schnellecke was born in Wolfsburg in 1944. Having lost his father at an early age, he grew up in the small forwarding company led by his mother, Margarete. After graduating from high school in Wolfsburg, he studied law and economics and made a career in administration and state politics. For 16 years, among other things, he was principal and mayor of the city of Wolfsburg.
• At the same time, Rolf Schnellecke has been an entrepreneur since 1967. He studied the forwarding business from the ground up and founded the M. Schnellecke KG at the age of 22 together with his mother. As shareholder and later chairman of the supervisory board, he determined the strategic orientation of the company. The operative business was successfully managed for many years by the managing directors Bernhard Pieninck, Jürgen Knoblau and Uwe Zinnschlag and today by Nikolaus Külps (CEO) and Andreas Wagner (COO). In 2012, the next generation entered the corporate management.
• At an early stage, the entrepreneur recognized the need of the automotive industry to globalize and reduce the depth of production. He believes that the related outsourcing requirements will be the future of modern freight forwarding and has consistently converted his parents' company from a regional rail and furniture forwarding company with four trucks, into a global player and outsourcing partner within 30 years. In the early 1970s, he built up international long-distance forwarding services on fixed lines. He then concentrated on highly specialized value-added partnerships with the automotive industry. 1990, his company became the first logistics service provider to take over the highly innovative assembly of door and side panels, breaking new ground in the forwarding industry. The project is becoming the blueprint for modern value-added logistics and is still widely adopted as the standard in automotive logistics. His early approaches to expand the pure transport and storage processes and to offer value-added services and production activities as an outsourcing partner were visionary and had a ground-breaking influence on automotive logistics.
• Rolf Schnellecke does not only focus on logistics, yet also on innovation in the transport sector. In the 1970s, he was one of the first freight forwarders to develop large-capacity vehicles for the ever-lighter components of the automotive industry. In the 1980s, he used the emerging computer technology, and he is now pushing ahead with digitization and autonomization. This unconditional willingness to innovate and change gives his company competitive advantages and makes him a sought-after provider of ideas and innovation partner.
• As a result of this strategic orientation, the Schnellecke Group has written a success story and employs almost 20,000 people at over 60 locations worldwide. As one of the few medium-sized companies, Schnellecke is a preferred logistics provider worldwide due to its specialized services for almost all OEMs as well as for many 1st and 2nd tier suppliers. In addition to transport logistics with inter-plant transport, area forwarding, milkruns, JIT and JIS transports, Schnellecke is also active for OEMs in the packaging and supply logistics of plants, the sequencing of parts and assemblies and in module assembly. The supply logistics of automotive plants with parts and modules ranges from warehouse management and material flow control through order picking and sequencing, to material supply to the production lines (line feeding). Packaging logistics ensures the supply chain of overseas assembly plants and the supply of spare parts to dealers. Packaging planning, warehouse management and disposition of production and packaging materials, as well as empty containers are part of the range of services. In addition, Part-by-Part/ CKD/ MKD/ SKD, packaging activities, and container stuffing is also carried out. In the field of module assembly, Schnellecke is active as a system supplier and extended workbench for the automotive industry. The sequencing of parts and assemblies with modern order picking systems takes place in plant-near multi-JIS centers for suppliers and OEMs.