Even as a teenager, Jonas Nicoll became interested in plastic high-tech solutions: He had already been fascinated by the versatile areas of application of the material PTFE and its unique properties as a holiday jobber in the production section of today's Berghof Fluoroplastics. This fascination influenced his further school and career development. Today, after a dual course of study in Business Administration at Berghof, he combines his business skills and his technical interest with each other as Head of Sales & Marketing of this business division - and, with his enthusiasm and know-how, is convincing more and more customers of the advantages of this unique material.
1. You already manufactured Berghof PTFE products as a holiday jobber during your schooldays. Do you find this an advantage for your current work?
Absolutely. I often find this practical experience very valuable in talks with our customers and interested parties because it helps me not only to explain the competencies of Berghof Fluoroplastics theoretically but also to quickly relate our varied possibilities in production with the respective requirement of the customer. This knowledge also helps me to coordinate projects internally with our technical departments such as Development and Production to this day. I also worked side by side with many of the members of our production team during that time. That is, of course, an optimum basis for clarifying issues rapidly - out on a run together during the lunch break for example.
2. After school, you decided to take a dual course of study in Economics at the Berghof Group. Was that a good decision?
Definitely. Mainly because the close relation to practice enabled me to put the study content immediately into work practice. We were deployed at many different stations in our different business units in the course of studying - and therefore gained valuable insights of the entire company group. So, in my opinion, the dual course of study at Berghof was a very good basis for successfully working here later. The intensive exchange of knowledge with each other within our group has always been very important so that all sections benefit from each other - expressed by our common motif "Your Innovation Hub". A good example of the success of this idea is the close cooperation between the divisions Laboratory Technology and Fluoroplastics.
3. Key word cooperation: Berghof Fluoroplastics products are often used as components in a complete system - for example as a venting membrane in degassing units for high-voltage batteries. What does that mean for your work?
We consciously chose the route of maximum specialization. That is what our customers admire about us - an experienced and focused development partner on which they can totally rely. Today, we are well-known for innovative PTFE solutions which offer our customers important advantages - all in top-class quality thanks to state-of-the-art production methods. However, in order to integrate these products optimally in an overall concept such as the degassing unit mentioned above, we deal with the project as a whole and cooperate very closely with our customers on a partnership basis. After all, a technical solution is only really good when it not only works perfectly but can also be produced intelligently and therefore at optimum costs. Here too, we have built up extensive know-how and valuable partnerships over the years, for example, with specialists for certain production technologies - true to our "Innovation Hub" idea.
