Profile

Name: Dr Birgitt Bendiek
Occupation: Management
With the company since: 2005

In Germany, reports on the low proportion of women in management positions appear time and time again. This is despite the fact that a great deal has changed since the signing of the „Agreement between the Federal Government and the Spitzenverbände of German business on the promotion of equal opportunities for women and men in the private sector“ in July 2001.
The 4th Equal Opportunities Balance Sheet, presented in 2011, documents the positive development: almost 28 per cent of management positions in companies are held by women, and among younger managers up to the age of 39, the figure is as high as 38 per cent.

At ZINQ, female leadership has long been a part of everyday life.

An example of this is Dr Birgitt Bendiek, a native of Gelsenkirchen who lives in Mülheim an der Ruhr.
She was appointed to the management board of ZINQ GmbH & Co. KG in 2012. Up to that point, the PhD-qualified metallurgical engineer had already been able to gather extensive management experience, having held roles such as head of the West business division and management of various plants at ZINQ since 2011. But what does the first female member of the ZINQ management board herself say about her career path and her leadership style?
„I joined ZINQ as Head of Quality with the main focus of systematising and optimising established standards to meet the challenges of series production,“ reports Dr Birgitt Bendiek.

She has accompanied the development of the integrated management systems at the ZINQ Group since 2005 and has also been Managing Director of ZINQ Technologie GmbH since 2014.

Management of the Gelsenkirchen plant
In February 2010 she moved from a staff function into operational responsibility and took over the management of the Gelsenkirchen site. Her technical expertise and her special way of dealing with people proved themselves not only at the Gelsenkirchen site, where the main task was to master structural challenges sustainably.

leadership style

„When my employees are given a task by me, I leave the method of reaching a solution up to them, but provide the necessary confidence and support at various points to reach the goal, similar to the banister of a staircase.“

She would give up her position immediately if the „we've always done it that way“ phrase were to pass her lips even once. Questioning things, including in the factory's own processes and procedures, is, in her view, crucial.

„Sometimes there's more potential behind it than you might think at first glance,“ she points out.

She also considers it important to spark enthusiasm for the subject of surface finishing among young people, as hardly anyone has any idea what exactly lies behind it.
She considers projects such as the development of new zinc smelters and process technologies to be pioneering in their results.