Oliver Hermes

Chairman of the Board of Trustees

Oliver Hermes, President and Chief Executive Officer of Wilo Group, has been a member of the Executive Board since 2006 and in 2019 was named by Dr.-Ing. h.c. Jochen Opländer as successor of the business and thus also as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Wilo-Foundation.

The shaper of the future

In recent years, Oliver Hermes, as President & CEO, has been consistently promoting the transformation of the Wilo Group towards becoming a digital climate protection pioneer of the industry. As part of the strategic realignment of the group, Oliver Hermes sped up the internationalisation of the business: He strengthened Wilo’s position as a leading global player by entering the markets of East, West and Central Africa and the countries of Latin America, strengthening the regional presence in Southeast Asia and the Middle East and establishing new plants in Russia, India, China, Korea, Turkey, the UAE and the United States. As a result, the Wilo Group has grown into a multi-billion business in recent years.

In his role as CEO he has played a key role in significantly increasing the brand performance through the modernisation of brand identity and development of the technology group from a “hidden champion” to a “visible & connected champion”. Moreover, he is consistently working to strengthen Wilo’s innovation leadership by pursuing the group’s shift from a component manufacturer to a provider of systems, solutions and services.

Today and in the future, we are making an important global contribution to shaping galloping urbanisation, countering energy shortages and water scarcity and accelerating climate change.

Oliver Hermes, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of the Wilo Group

Pioneer for climate and resource protection

As part of this mission, several future-oriented acquisitions were made, for example. He is also advancing the digital transformation of the Wilo Group along the four dimensions of products and solutions, processes, business models and people. In line with the motto “Climate protection is part of our DNA” Oliver Hermes is committed to ensuring that Wilo helps to improve living standards worldwide and, in particular, increase the efficiency of water management systems in times of climate change. The fact that Wilo received the renowned German Sustainability Award (DNP) 2021 in the “Climate” transformation field underlines Wilo’s credibility as a “climate protection pioneer”.

In 2024, the Wilo Group Executive Board, chaired by Oliver Hermes, took the Group's commitment to sustainability to a new level by declaring the Wilo Group's group-wide sustainability strategy to be the overarching strategy. Since then, all other functional corporate strategies have been subordinated to it without exception.

Oliver Hermes in December 2023 at the virtual ground-breaking ceremony for the new health centre (Health Cube) at Wilopark, together with Dortmund's Lord Mayor Thomas Westphal and founder and entrepreneur Dr.-Ing. h.c. Jochen Opländer. Photo: Roland Baege

Commitee activities and Awards

 

  • Honorary Consul of the Republic of Kazakhstan in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia

  • Deputy Chairman of the Near and Middle East Association

  • Member of the Board of the Africa Association

  • Member of the Board of the Sub-Saharan Africa Initiative of German Business

  • Member of the Board of Trustees of the Family Business Foundation

  • Member of the Board of Trustees of the German Sustainability Award

  • Member of the University Council of the Technical University of Dortmund

  • Member of the Advisory Board of Borussia Dortmund GmbH & Co. KGaA (BVB)

  • Member of the Executive Board of pro Ruhrgebiet e.V.

  • Member of the Advisory Board of the Initiativkreis Ruhr

     

In 2014, Oliver Hermes was awarded the title of “Honorary Citizen of the Ruhr Area“.

The committee members of the Wilo-Foundation, from left to right: Evi Hoch (Board of Directors), Dr Hinrich Mählmann, Dr.-Ing. h.c. Jochen Opländer, Chairman of the Board of Trustees Oliver Hermes, Lawyer Lars Roßner, Jan Opländer and Wolfgang Mertineit (Board of Directors). Photo: Roland Baege

Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Wilo-Foundation

In April 2019, Oliver Hermes took over as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Wilo-Foundation, having already been appointed as his entrepreneurial successor by Dr.-Ing. h.c. Jochen Opländer at the beginning of the year. As the new Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Wilo-Foundation, he succeeded Prof. Dr. Hans-Jörg Bullinger, the long-standing President of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V., Munich, in 2019.