Dr. Matthias Metz.

OBERKOCHEN, Germany—Effective July 1, 2015, the currently four-member executive board of Carl Zeiss AG, headed by president and CEO, Dr. Michael Kaschke, will be expanded to include a new member, responsible for the vision care and consumer optics business groups. The new fifth member of the executive board will be Dr. Matthias Metz, 44, who will head the Vision Care group when he is named president and CEO of the Carl Zeiss AG’s subsidiary, Carl Zeiss Vision International GmbH in July.

According to a statement from Carl Zeiss AG, the current members of the management board of the Vision Care business group, Dr. Raymund Heinen, Ulrich Krauss and Sven Hermann, will continue to serve on Vision Care’s management board. A Carl Zeiss spokesperson reconfirmed to VMail that Krauss will also continue to lead Carl Zeiss Vision Care's U.S. business as CEO.

Dr. Manfred Klingel will leave the management board of the business group to pursue new opportunities. “The executive board of Carl Zeiss AG and the management board of the Vision Care business group thank Dr. Klingel for his great commitment and his key contributions over recent years, in particular in the operations area, and extend their best wishes to him for the future,” the statement said.

"The expansion of the executive board under the leadership of Dr. Kaschke is in line with the company's strategy to strengthen the consumer brand businesses," said Dr. Dieter Kurz, chairman of the supervisory board of Carl Zeiss AG. "This marks a further consistent implementation of the goal to position Zeiss as a portfolio company organized according to market segment. With Dr. Metz, we have succeeded in gaining an experienced entrepreneur from the consumer goods industry for Zeiss.”

"Since 2011 we have repositioned the Vision Care business group and developed into a business group which is clearly contributing to the earnings of the Zeiss Group in terms of both its cash flow and EBIT," said Dr. Kaschke. "We look forward to continuing along this road with Dr. Metz. We expect his appointment to the executive board to provide new momentum which we will use to further develop the Vision Care business group as an innovative and high quality provider of solutions for vision care professionals and their consumers."

Dr. Metz is moving to Zeiss from Fackelmann GmbH + Co. KG, Hersbruck, where he most recently held the position of chief sales and marketing officer. Prior to this, he had served on the board of directors at ZWILLING J.A. Henckels AG in Solingen and worked a number of years for the management consultancy McKinsey. Dr. Metz has many years of experience in international management, particularly in North America, Europe, and through his several years as the managing director responsible for sales, production and sourcing activities of the ZWILLING Group also in China. He earned a doctorate in economics and social sciences at the University of Luneburg, Germany, after having received a degree in business administration at the University of Nuremberg, Germany.

With the exception of the changes associated with the new membership of Dr. Metz, the allocation of business responsibilities on the executive board of Carl Zeiss AG will remain unchanged, the company said.