Schwarz Group opens the door to a new generation

“If I would start my life again, I would do the same thing and work with the same shareholder.” The retail passion keeps animating Klaus Gehrig, who has been heading the 2nd biggest German grocery retailer since 2004. Aged 70, he works without a computer but with a mobile phone. Gehrig can owes his extraordinary and unusual longevity within the Schwartz Group to the continuous support from Dieter Schwarz. Aged 79, Schwarz is the main shareholder of the German retail giant, which operates both the Lidl discounter (€74.6 billion turnover in the 2017/2018 financial year) and the Kaufland chain of grocery big boxes (annual sales of €22.3 billion).

Based at Group headquarters in Baden-Württemberg, Gehrig took over the Kaufland business in March 2019, following the departure of Patrick Kaudewitz (aged 55).