Karin Gärtner

Meanwhile, the trainer Karin Gärtner looks back on more than 35 years of professional experience in the fields of transport & logistics, motorsports (rally, Le Mans & Formula 1), automotive industry (TIER1), medical technology and robotics. During this time, she has worked exclusively in large, international companies and have held management positions with responsibility for procurement (production materials as well as investments, services, and non-production materials), supplier and quality management, logistics, and assembly for more than 20 years. In procurement in particular, Karin Gärtner covers a broad spectrum: from small and large series production for technologically sophisticated industrial products to plant construction with one-off production or very small series.
This involves the functions of strategic, product group, operational, series, project, and advanced purchasing in conjunction with supplier management.
‘Optimising or reinstalling processes and organisations in order to significantly increase efficiency’: This is a fitting description of the ‘central theme’ of Karin Gärtner’s career. In the context of restructuring and reorganisation tasks, with her concepts she has always pursued the goal of raising organisations to a new, higher level in terms of costs, quality, reliability, strategy etc.
„My personal motto: to further develop the employees and processes so that I myself become dispensable – the excellent business results then become the team’s success.“
In her training courses, Karin Gärtner imparts the necessary procurement expertise in such a practical way that her participants can immediately apply their newly acquired knowledge in their day-to-day business activities, whereby Karin Gärtner addresses all the groups of people involved in procurement – from managers and purchasing staff to project managers, product developers, engineers, etc. Owing to Karin Gärtner’s many years of experience in management, she communicate at eye level across all hierarchical levels and motivate people to try something new.

Trainer profile

  • Procurement, sales, management, and behavioural trainer
  • Partner at Institut für Wirtschaftspädagogik

Education and experience

  • Freight forwarding agent certified by the Chamber of Industry and Commerce
  • Graduate of the distance learning courses Customs and Export Control (Außenwirtschafts-akademie Münster)
  • Quality Management Officer and internal auditor according to ISO 9001 and IATF 16949
  • Business Studies B.Sc. Logistics Management (European Distance Learning University | University of Applied Sciences in cooperation with the Fraunhofer Institute)
  • Business Studies MBA (Henley Business School | University of Reading, UK)
  • Division Manager / Director in the motorsports, automotive, medical technology, and robotics industries
  • Areas of responsibility: Procurement (Direct & Indirect Spend), Supplier & Quality Management as well as Logistics and Assembly Management