“Markus Glaser-Gallion prefers cycling to driving in his private life, even though he heads one of the automotive industry's key industrial service providers.
Markus Glaser-Gallion cycles to the office every day. The 62-year-old CEO of Leadec, the Stuttgart-based industrial service provider, rarely uses a car.
Yet, little would run smoothly in the global automotive industry without the support of this Swabian company – because it assists manufacturers with, among other things, the maintenance and cleaning of machinery and production facilities, internal logistics, and the management and operation of buildings.
"All the classic European premium manufacturers are our customers," says Glaser-Gallion, listing a few names. He mentions Mercedes-Benz and BMW as examples, and in the commercial vehicle sector, Daimler Truck, Scania, and Traton.
In his family, the business graduate, who studied in Münster, Westphalia, has to speak up in advance if he needs the car. The current discussion about the planned ban on internal combustion engines in the European Union from 2035 onwards doesn't affect the company for the time being. They are not dependent on the technology of the cars themselves. "For us, the only important thing is that cars are being driven." Every day, the Swabian company, with its approximately 23,000 employees, services 900 factories. Nearly half of these are plants belonging to car and commercial vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers.
"Our focus is always on the manufacturing processes, not on the product."
Leadec's tasks for its customers are very diverse. For example, the company acts as a technical service provider for a Mercedes subsidiary in Arnstadt, which refines crankcases for particularly high-performance engines. The highly complex production facilities include a wide variety of plant technologies such as machining centers, robotics, and arc wire spraying systems. As a manufacturer-independent service provider, the Stuttgart-based company, with its 50 employees there, handles production maintenance, among other things. Automation and technical cleaning of all systems, as well as services in internal logistics, as Glaser-Gallion explains.
The company is the former industrial services division of Voith, which is now approximately 90 percent owned by the financial investor Triton and about ten percent by the management. Glaser-Gallion has been involved from the very beginning. He has shaped the company for years and was already on board at Voith. "Building an independent service champion is appealing and different from being responsible for a division within a large corporation. Generally, an independent service division doesn't have an easy time within a classic plant engineering company," he says.
Before Glaser-Gallion became a member of the management board of Voith Industrial Services in 2003, he held various management positions, including at Raab Karcher and as chairman of the restructuring advisory board of Wellenmöbel GmbH. At Leadec, he has primarily focused on reducing the company's dependence on the automotive industry in recent years. "At the beginning, the automotive sector accounted for more than 90 percent of our revenue." "Now it's 55 to 60 percent." The goal is to reduce the share of automotive business in revenue to 50 percent within two to three years. The Leadec Group's revenue increased by six percent in 2024 to more than 1.3 billion euros. For 2025, Glaser-Gallion expects revenues of between 1.3 and 1.4 billion euros. The company does not disclose profit figures. However, the manager adds that the result should be significantly higher than in the previous year.
He estimates the global market for technical services in the automotive and commercial vehicle sector at more than 20 billion euros. This industry has been one of the pioneers in outsourcing. "I assume that this trend will continue to increase in the area of building management and maintenance in the long term," he says. "Manufacturers will increasingly focus on production, if only because of the costs."
The largest market for the Swabian company is Germany, followed by the United States and England. Services related to electromobility now generate more than 100 million euros in revenue. According to the Leadec CEO, increasing environmental awareness and plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions offer further opportunities for growth. In the area of green services, revenue now significantly exceeds 100 million euros. This includes, for example, the installation of photovoltaic systems and the construction and operation of charging infrastructure in factories.
Glaser-Gallion has also driven internationalization. The company is now active in 16 countries. In doing so, the company follows its customers abroad, similar to automotive suppliers. Leadec, for example, followed Scania to other countries – like Scania to France. One focus there is logistics. Empty packaging from the Scania plant is collected, sorted, and transported to the packaging handling center. There, hundreds of tons of packaging—from wood and plastics to foam—are disassembled, sorted, and prepared for reuse. The materials are then returned to Scania's suppliers. This closed-loop logistics process reduces waste and saves resources, says the manager, who apparently expects the main owner to soon divest from the company. "With Triton, we are in the autumn of our relationship," says the sixty-two-year-old, pauses briefly, and changes the subject. Market rumors suggest that UBS is exploring options.
Leadec, however, is not only active for car and commercial vehicle manufacturers but also in the food industry and aircraft manufacturing, among others. "The production runs at aircraft manufacturers are smaller," says Glaser-Gallion. And for online retailers, they provide classic conveyor system maintenance and also handle the programming of conveyor systems. In distribution centers, the industrial service provider generally has less work to do than in a traditional factory where something is produced.
Glaser-Gallion sees opportunities for the Swabian company to also profit from the business surrounding artificial intelligence. Corresponding services for data centers could be added in the future, says the manager, who owns a 1973 VW Beetle. He enjoys driving it—but not to his office in a Stuttgart industrial area. He prefers his trekking bike for that.” [1]
1. Der Mann, der die Fabriken der Autoindustrie am Laufen halt. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung; Frankfurt. 04 Nov 2025: 19. OLIVER SCHMALE
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