Interview
Our greatest potential lies in our customers
Alexander Kainer and Ingo Meitinger have shared responsibility for the operations of the sales company Pfeifer Timber GmbH since 1 January 2025. The two men have many years’ experience and different areas of focus. In an interview, they discuss their roles, their objectives and their vision for a future made of wood.
Mr Meitinger, you’ve been part of the pfeifer group for three decades now. How have you found moving into a managerial role?
Ingo Meitinger: The company means a great deal to me, both professionally and personally. Over many years, I’ve gained valuable experience and some far-reaching insights from talking regularly with the senior bosses. Knowing Oskar Pfeifer, who passed away in 2025 aged 91, had a particularly profound impact on me. This strong affinity and the knowledge that I’m able to make a lasting contribution to the company’s continued development fill me with pride and lend a deeper meaning to my work. I’ve been lucky enough to play an active role in helping to shape numerous changes over the years. As Managing Director, my responsibilities are now more extensive, but it’s precisely this new perspective that makes me excited. I want to use my experience, coupled with innovative sales solutions and good staff management, to further the development of Pfeifer’s mission and culture and inject fresh momentum into the team.
Ingo Meitinger
has been part of the Pfeifer Group for 30 years. He spent a long time heading up the internal sales team before assuming responsibility for the Formwork division and, in 2023, being named an authorised signatory for the company. His current role as Head of the Customer Service Center (KSC) and Managing Director sees him in charge of all sales processes.
Mr Kainer, what’s been your focus as you’ve got under way in your new position?
Alexander Kainer: I’m focusing on the divisions and on order management. One thing is clear to me, and that’s that our greatest potential lies in our customers. We want to get even closer to them, understand their needs better and make them propositions that set us well apart from our competitors. Internationalisation has a vital role to play in this: we’ve got markets such as the US, the UK and Asia particularly in our sights. At the same time, we want to set up processes internally to make the sales team more efficient and act more like an advisor, and digitalisation is one way to achieve this.
In what way is digitalisation speeding up developments?
Alexander Kainer: By freeing up space for other things: digitalisation has given us more time for our customers and allowed us to advise them more closely. The aim is to turn the sales team from traditional sellers into genuine partners, supported by clear digital workflows in the background. That gives you efficiency but also – and most importantly – a better customer experience. Order management also has a major role to play in this context. We need to ensure we only take on orders that make commercial sense – and I mean across the board, in Austria, Germany, the Czech Republic and, in the future, Finland too. The aim is to manage profitable orders efficiently and in line with the ‘one-stop-shop’ principle.
Alexander Kainer
brought over 25 years’ experience in international corporate development when he joined the Pfeifer Group. Having sat on the Advisory Board since 2019, he was appointed Managing Director within the Group four years later. He has been CEO of Pfeifer Timber since early 2025 and CEO of Pölkky Oy since July of that year. His work focuses on leading the divisions, managing the flows of orders into the plants to optimise earnings and ensuring the coordination between the sales and production teams that this requires.
Mr Meitinger, what changes have had the biggest impact for you over all these years?
Ingo Meitinger: Advances in technology in particular – from automation through to high-level data analyses – have changed our work for good, allowing us to ramp up efficiency and productivity considerably. Expanding into international markets has been another landmark achievement. Although it’s extended our reach enormously, it also brings the challenge of adapting to different market requirements. Customer service has also evolved, with today’s customers expecting bespoke services and speedy responses. And, last but not least, issues like sustainability and staff development are now much more in the spotlight than they used to be.
Where do you think that pfeifer’s strengths as a partner lie nowadays?
Alexander Kainer: One clear advantage we have is our extensive value chain, from the sawmill through to recycling 100 per cent of our waste material. This lets us position ourselves as a full-service provider on the market. There are also a lot of synergy effects to be had between products – think blocks and sawn timber, formwork panels and beams, or glulam with three-layer panels. There’s undoubtedly untapped potential for the sales team to provide certain customers with an even more comprehensive service. And our team is one of our biggest strengths. The experience and loyalty we have in sales is truly impressive. And, last but not least, there’s our good reputation. Wherever my role takes me, I find that the name of Pfeifer represents trust, quality and reliability.
Mr Meitinger, what are your objectives as managing director?
Ingo Meitinger: I’m focusing on several things. Top of my list is customer satisfaction: we want to create an exceptional customer experience. But staff development is also important to me. If we support and encourage talented individuals and foster an environment built on appreciation and motivation, it’ll strengthen our entire organisation. Innovation, growth and sustainability are other key objectives. We need to put environmentally friendly practices firmly in place and maintain the highest possible ethical standards while increasing our efficiency and profitability. The challenge lies in bringing about continuous optimisation without skimping on quality.
Let’s finish by looking ahead: where’s the future taking us?
Ingo Meitinger: My time at Pfeifer has always been one of ongoing development and new challenges. And I’ll keep on doing all I can to bring the company further forward. Each of us knows their role, we complement one another well, and we share the same desire to strengthen the sales operation.
Alexander Kainer: Wood has a bright future. Even though the construction industry is mired in stagnation at the moment, the timber construction segment is holding steady or even growing in some parts, in terms of both prices and volumes. And that’s just the beginning. If we play to our strengths in an even more targeted way, we’ll be able to grow our sales activities further on the international stage and expand our market presence significantly. I’m optimistic about the future.
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