Dirk Holbach
Former Chief Supply Chain Officer, Consumer Brands at Henkel
Speaking at TFEST26: Tuesday, December 1 2026 at 10:10–10:40 on the Main Stage: “Opening Fireside Chat: The Human Mechanics of a Mega-Merger: Leading Your Team Through Massive Change”.
Speaking at TFEST26: Wednesday, December 2 2026 at 11:40–12:10 on the The Lab: “Simulation Before Optimization: Why Enterprise Planning Needs a Causal Model of the Business”. With Jay Koganti (Anusama) and Vineet Khanna (Nestlé).
About Dirk
Dr. Dirk Holbach brings almost 25 years of experience in Supply Chain, Operations, and Purchasing. As former Chief Supply Chain Officer for Henkel Consumer Brands, he led the Supply Chain & Operations unit through one of the largest mergers in the company's history. Since joining Henkel in 1996, he held various global leadership roles, including assignments in Mexico and Germany. Dr. Holbach is a recognized leader in digital supply chain transformation, successfully steering global manufacturing and logistics strategies to drive efficiency and growth.
Session Overview
In corporate restructuring, the strategy is drawn up in the boardroom, but it succeeds or fails on the factory floor. When Henkel made the historic decision to merge its legacy Beauty Care and Laundry & Home Care divisions into a single "Consumer Brands" powerhouse, Dirk Holbach was tasked with integrating the massive supply chain networks behind them. The mandate was clear: consolidate overlapping footprints, standardise KPIs, and merge operations across 30+ factories globally. However, Holbach's true mandate was cultural. He had to unite two fiercely loyal, historically separated teams under a single operational roof without cratering morale or losing critical talent. In this exclusive fireside chat, Holbach will detail the human realities of leading an organisation through a monumental transition. Moving beyond the spreadsheet, he will unpack how he secured buy-in from middle management, communicated difficult realities with transparency, and managed the inevitable change fatigue that comes with large-scale M&A and network restructuring.
About TFEST26
TFEST26 is Europe's most senior supply chain conference, taking place December 1–2 2026 at Colosseum Berlin. It brings together 400+ Director-level and above leaders (Chief Supply Chain Officers, VPs, and senior directors from Cisco, Henkel, Estée Lauder, Diageo, Schneider Electric, Novartis, Mars, and others) for two days of peer benchmarking, candid practitioner firesides, themed roundtables, and pre-scheduled 1:1 meetings.