To celebrate our 45th anniversary, we are excited to take a trip down memory lane with our members, remembering the origins of EGMF and acknowledging how we have evolved and arrived at where we are today.
We spoke with Andreas Rangert, our Vice President and member of our Board, to hear his thoughts on how our Federation has evolved!
What is your current role and responsibilities?
I work for Husqvarna Group and I have been with the Husqvarna for more or less my whole career, adding up to more than 25 years now. I have a Master of Science in Engineering, with Engineering Physics and Chemical Engineering, and have worked in several areas during my years at Husqvarna, such as Lab engineer, Project management, Product & Portfolio Management, R&D management, Sales & Marketing and, as of today, Business Unit Management. One notable thing about Husqvarna is that the company was founded in 1689, 333 years ago, manufacturing muskets for the Swedish military. That is also why the Husqvarna logo actually originates from a musket’s barrel and sight.
What is your company’s mission?
Husqvarna makes a difference to people who shape green spaces and urban environments through our leadership in user-centered and sustainable solutions. With our passion for innovation, we create products and services for customers around the world. We are also very dedicated to sustainability and how we can contribute to reaching the overall global targets.
When did you become involved in EGMF?
Husqvarna has been a member of EGMF for many years, and I have been in the EGMF board for three years, where I currently hold the Vice President position.
How does EGMF help your company to achieve your goals and support your mission?
For me, EGMF is a truly important organisation for our industry as we have a stronger voice together, rather than as single companies. The world is moving in an ever-increasing speed and in order to keep up with all the changes, we need to make sure we have an even playing field where our different members get the same information and ensure that we share a common industry understanding. EGMF can help us all to achieve that with our industry’s best interests in focus. EGMF is also monitoring developments in the European markets which helps members to get a good understanding of business dynamics. This is important as we have such a high seasonality in many parts of our business.
What do you see as the biggest challenge and opportunity for the industry today, or in the near future?
In my opinion, our main challenge today is to keep up with all new legislation and certification requirements that follows with reshaping our industry and the technology development that is ongoing.
Where do you see EGMF’s role in helping your company to address these challenges and opportunities?
EGMF can help provide input so these requirements get as synchronised as possible, within Europe but also globally. We know that we face some major technology shifts, moving from petrol to battery, getting more and more connected etc, so here we need to understand how this will impact our industry and our customers. We have a very interesting decade ahead of us where we will see a lot of changes, and we all need to transform. Here I see that EGMF has a vital role to play in helping our members to understand how to tackle some of these challenges in time.
To find out more, you can read about the history of EGMF here.