Johannes Bussmann

Innovative digital solutions are a cornerstone of our corporate strategy.

— Johannes Bussmann

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Overview

Dr. Johannes Bussmann
Born	(1969-01-07) 7 January 1969 Osterwick, Rosendahl, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany
Citizenship	German
Education	Diploma and doctorate in aerospace engineering
Alma mater	RWTH Aachen University
Occupation(s)	Aerospace engineer and business executive
Employer	MTU Aero Engines AG
Known for	Leadership at Lufthansa Technik, TÜV SÜD and MTU Aero Engines; digitalisation of aircraft maintenance services
Title	Chief Executive Officer and Chief Sustainability Officer
Term	2025–present
Predecessor	Lars Wagner
Board member of	Advisory Board member, Diehl Stiftung & Co. KG

✈️ Johannes Bussmann (born 7 January 1969) is a German aerospace engineer and business executive who, since September 2025, has served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief Sustainability Officer (CSO) of MTU Aero Engines AG, Germany’s largest aircraft engine manufacturer and a constituent of the DAX stock index. He previously led Lufthansa Technik, the aircraft maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) subsidiary of Lufthansa Group, from 2015 to 2022 and served as Chairman of the Board of Management of testing, inspection and certification group TÜV SÜD AG between 2023 and 2025.

📊 Engineer–executive profile. Trained as a combustion specialist with a doctorate in aerospace engineering from RWTH Aachen University, Bussmann spent more than two decades at Lufthansa Technik, rising from development engineer to CEO, driving digitalisation, global expansion and restructuring through the COVID-19 downturn before returning the business to profitability. At TÜV SÜD he broadened his remit into industrial safety, digitalisation and sustainability, before being recruited by MTU to lead the company through technical challenges in the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan (GTF) engine programme and the wider push toward lower-emission propulsion technologies.

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Early life and education

🎓 Family background. Bussmann was born on 7 January 1969 in the village of Osterwick in north-western Germany, today part of Rosendahl in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and grew up in a middle-class household in which his father worked as a self-employed architect. His small-town upbringing and exposure to a family business environment later contributed to his reputation as a grounded, technically minded manager rather than a celebrity executive.

📚 Academic training. From 1989 to 1997 he studied aerospace engineering at RWTH Aachen University, earning both a diploma and a doctorate; his doctoral research focused on combustion technology, specifically the thermal loading of high-temperature turbine nozzles, providing a deep technical foundation for his later work with jet engines. This combination of theoretical modelling and applied engineering would shape his subsequent career, in which he frequently bridged detailed technical issues and strategic decision-making.

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Career

Early career and rise at Lufthansa Technik

🛠️ Industry entry. After completing his doctorate, Bussmann began his professional career in 1998 as a product development engineer at ABB in Mannheim, working on power-plant technology, before moving into aviation in 1999 when he joined Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg as a development engineer in product management. The shift from stationary power systems to aircraft maintenance placed him in a company that was evolving from an internal service provider into a global MRO business, offering opportunities to combine engineering with commercial responsibilities.

🌏 Sales and Asia-Pacific. In 2001 he made an unusual transition from engineering into sales when he was appointed Sales Director for the Asia-Pacific region; based first in Hamburg and from 2003 in Singapore, he was tasked with developing Lufthansa Technik’s presence in fast-growing Asian markets and maintaining regular contact with airline customers. Reflecting on this period, he described the company’s strategy as being “closer to the customer – showing regular presence”, underscoring his belief that even highly technical services businesses must remain closely aligned with client needs.

📈 Senior management promotions. After returning to Germany, Bussmann was promoted in 2005 to Vice President Marketing and Sales at Lufthansa Technik’s Hamburg headquarters, where he helped sharpen the company’s customer focus; in 2007 he became Senior Vice President Component Services, and in 2011 Senior Vice President Engine Services, giving him responsibility for major business units covering both components and complex engine overhauls. In these roles he was regarded as a “fix-it” manager who identified technical and efficiency problems in underperforming divisions and mobilised teams to resolve them.

🧩 Executive Board responsibilities. In September 2012, at the age of forty-three, Bussmann joined Lufthansa Technik’s Executive Board with a dual portfolio combining Human Resources with responsibility for Engine and VIP Services, an unusual mix that exposed him to both personnel policy and high-end technical operations. During this period Lufthansa Technik consolidated its position as a leading global MRO provider, and Bussmann gained board-level experience spanning people management, product strategy and international operations.

CEO of Lufthansa Technik

🛫 Appointment as CEO. In March 2015 Lufthansa announced that Bussmann would succeed August Wilhelm Henningsen as Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO of Lufthansa Technik, with effect from 1 April 2015, placing the forty-six-year-old engineer at the head of a company employing around 23,000 people worldwide. When he had joined Lufthansa Technik in 1999 its annual revenue was about €2 billion; by the time he became CEO the business generated roughly €5.6 billion in turnover, and he was expected to extend this growth trajectory.

💻 Digital transformation agenda. As CEO, Bussmann emphasised digitalisation as a cornerstone of Lufthansa Technik’s strategy, championing data-analytics platforms such as the AVIATAR predictive-maintenance system, advocating paperless workflows in overhaul shops and framing “innovative digital solutions” as central to competitiveness. In a 2022 interview he described progress in digitalisation over “the last five, six years” as something he was particularly proud of, highlighting the practical benefits of giving mechanics real-time data to diagnose issues and optimise aircraft performance.

🌍 Global expansion and growth. Under Bussmann’s leadership Lufthansa Technik expanded its global footprint by opening or enlarging maintenance facilities in regions such as Asia-Pacific and the Middle East and pursuing high-profile long-term contracts, including engine-maintenance agreements for widebody fleets such as the Airbus A380. By 2019, shortly before the COVID-19 pandemic, the company’s revenues had risen to around €7 billion, reflecting the combination of expanding air travel and the transformation from an internal maintenance unit into a broadly diversified, customer-centric MRO group.

🦠 Pandemic downturn. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 abruptly ended this expansionary phase: as airlines grounded aircraft and deferred maintenance, Lufthansa Technik’s revenues fell by about 43 per cent, and the company recorded what management described as the “toughest year in company history”. Bussmann oversaw restructuring measures that included cost-cutting, capacity reductions and difficult staffing decisions in an effort to stabilise the business and preserve core capabilities for an eventual market recovery.

🔄 Recovery and departure. As global air traffic gradually resumed, Lufthansa Technik returned to profitability in 2021, reporting more than €4 billion in revenue and an adjusted EBIT of about €210 million, results that the company attributed in part to restructuring steps taken during the crisis under Bussmann’s leadership. In early 2022 he announced that he would leave the Lufthansa Group “at his own request” after twenty-three years with the company to pursue new responsibilities outside aviation; the Supervisory Board thanked him for having led Lufthansa Technik “safely through the crisis” and appointed chief operations officer Soeren Stark as his successor.

TÜV SÜD (2023–2025)

🏗️ Move to TÜV SÜD. After leaving Lufthansa Technik, Bussmann shifted industries by joining TÜV SÜD AG, a Munich-based testing, inspection and certification group, where he became Chairman of the Board of Management on 1 January 2023, succeeding long-serving chief executive Axel Stepken. Leading a company with more than 25,000 employees worldwide and a history of over 150 years, he highlighted the breadth of TÜV SÜD’s thematic portfolio—from industrial safety and autonomous driving to cybersecurity—as one of the attractions of the role.

♻️ Strategy and short tenure. At TÜV SÜD, Bussmann focused on continuity combined with innovation, placing digitalisation and sustainability at the centre of the group’s strategy as it sought to address emerging challenges such as Industry 4.0, alternative energy systems and climate-related risks to infrastructure. His tenure was relatively brief: in 2025 TÜV SÜD announced a leadership transition as he prepared to move to MTU Aero Engines, appointing an interim management team and emphasising that the change came by mutual agreement. Commentators noted that stepping down after roughly two years, following a predecessor who had led the company for fifteen, was comparatively quick but did not give rise to public acrimony.

CEO of MTU Aero Engines

🔧 Appointment at MTU. In December 2024 MTU Aero Engines AG, Germany’s leading aircraft-engine manufacturer and a member of the DAX stock index, announced that Bussmann would become its next CEO, succeeding Lars Wagner, who opted not to renew his contract and later moved to Airbus. Bussmann joined MTU’s executive board in mid-2025 and formally took over as CEO on 1 September 2025; his management contract runs for five years, until mid-2030, and he simultaneously assumed the additional portfolio of Chief Sustainability Officer, underscoring the centrality of environmental issues in MTU’s strategy.

⚙️ GTF engines and growth agenda. Bussmann’s arrival at MTU coincided with ongoing reliability and durability problems affecting the Pratt & Whitney Geared Turbofan engine family, in which MTU is a key industrial partner; the issues had led to grounded aircraft and production disruptions, and Wagner’s period in charge was described by Reuters as “turbulent”. Drawing on his extensive MRO background, Bussmann is expected to apply both technical insight and crisis-management skills to help restore confidence in the GTF programme while also delivering on MTU’s growth guidance, which envisaged sales of €8.3–8.5 billion in 2025—up from about €6.3 billion in 2023—and a significant increase in earnings. At the same time he has positioned sustainability and future-engine technologies, including low-emission and potentially hydrogen-based concepts, as central pillars of MTU’s long-term roadmap.

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Financials and wealth

💶 MTU remuneration. As CEO of MTU Aero Engines, Bussmann receives a remuneration package in line with that of other executive-board members at the company, whose total annual compensation has typically been in the low- to mid-single-digit millions of euros; early disclosures for 2025, when he assumed the role partway through the year, show a pro-rated payment of about €70,000, reflecting only a fraction of a full-year package. Full-year figures for his salary, bonus and share-based incentives are expected to place him among well-paid industrial executives in Germany without reaching pay levels seen in some larger global corporations.

🏦 Earlier executive pay and net worth. Detailed compensation data for Bussmann’s earlier roles—such as his time as CEO of Lufthansa Technik and Chairman of TÜV SÜD—are not publicly broken out, because Lufthansa Technik is a subsidiary of Lufthansa Group and TÜV SÜD is foundation-owned; however, industry comparisons suggest that subsidiary CEOs in major German groups typically earned well over one million euros annually in the late 2010s. Unlike entrepreneur-founders, he has not amassed a large publicly visible equity stake in any company, and there is no indication that he belongs to the ranks of ultra-high-net-worth individuals; instead, his wealth appears to derive primarily from a long career of executive salaries and performance-related bonuses.

🧭 Advisory roles and fees. In addition to his line management positions, Bussmann has held selected external mandates, including service on the Advisory Board of Diehl Stiftung & Co. KG, the family-owned holding company whose subsidiaries supply aerospace and defence systems. Before becoming CEO of MTU he also sat for a period on the company’s Supervisory Board and, according to corporate disclosures, waived the usual attendance fees during that transition phase, suggesting that financial gain was not his primary motive for accepting the oversight role. These side activities provide supplementary income but are modest compared with his core executive compensation.

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Personal life and character

👨‍👩‍👧 Family and privacy. Despite his prominent corporate roles, Bussmann maintains a comparatively low public profile in his private life; he is married and has children, but he rarely mentions his family in interviews and tends to keep a clear separation between work and home. Media profiles emphasise his roots in a small Westphalian town and portray him as grounded and down-to-earth rather than part of a metropolitan elite.

🧠 Personality and temperament. An early assessment from his time at Lufthansa Technik, recorded by a supervisor in his personnel file, characterised the young engineer as “usually friendly, sometimes impatient”, a description that colleagues later echoed alongside remarks about his quick intellect. He is widely regarded as able to grasp complex issues rapidly and occasionally impatient when processes move too slowly, a combination that feeds into a management style which sets ambitious expectations while remaining approachable to technical staff.

🎤 Communication and leadership style. Bussmann’s communication is typically factual and engineer-like rather than theatrical, but over the years he has become an accomplished speaker to audiences ranging from aircraft mechanics to investors, often using vivid analogies to convey strategic messages. In one frequently cited remark he likened the transformation of Lufthansa Technik’s sales approach to high-performance motoring—“We have created a Porsche. Now all we need to do is fill the tank”—suggesting that the organisation had been re-engineered and now required business “fuel” to realise its potential.

🚴 Hobbies and personal interests. Away from the office, Bussmann is known as an enthusiast for technology in everyday life, the kind of engineer who enjoys understanding how devices work and who keeps abreast of new technical trends; colleagues also mention cycling and outdoor activities as counterbalances to his demanding roles. Living in Munich, close to the Alps, has enabled him to spend leisure time hiking or skiing with his family, though such pursuits are kept deliberately private and low-key.

⚖️ Values and management ethos. Across his leadership roles, Bussmann has been associated with a strong emphasis on safety, quality and ethical responsibility, a focus that aligns with both Lufthansa Technik’s mission in aircraft maintenance and TÜV SÜD’s role as a safety-testing organisation. He is known for taking a hands-on interest in technical details—regularly engaging with engineers and visiting workshops—while insisting that high standards not be compromised by cost pressures, an approach that has contributed to his reputation as a diligent and principled industrial leader.

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Controversies and challenges

⚠️ Pandemic restructuring and layoffs. The most contentious period of Bussmann’s career to date occurred during the COVID-19 crisis at Lufthansa Technik, when the collapse in demand for aircraft maintenance forced the company to restructure and cut jobs. In mid-2020 the firm announced plans to eliminate up to 4,000 positions worldwide, including several hundred in Hamburg, with a particular impact on younger employees still on probationary contracts; union flyers under the slogan “Die Zukunft wird gefeuert” (“The future is being fired”) and criticism from labour representatives and local politicians followed.

🗣️ Responses and assessments. Management under Bussmann defended the redundancies as an unfortunate but unavoidable response to an unprecedented market collapse, arguing that even with government support “for over 4,000 employees…we have no work in the foreseeable future” and that preserving the long-term viability of the company required a smaller workforce. Lufthansa Group’s Supervisory Board later praised Bussmann for having guided Lufthansa Technik “safely through the crisis”, and the company returned to profit by 2021, but union critics have continued to cite the pandemic layoffs as evidence of a harsh cost-cutting approach.

🏛️ TÜV SÜD legacy issues and departure. At TÜV SÜD, Bussmann’s tenure was not directly associated with major new controversies, although the company continued to deal with the long-running legal and reputational aftermath of a fatal dam collapse in Brazil in 2019, for which TÜV SÜD had issued safety certification prior to his arrival. His decision to leave TÜV SÜD after roughly two years to join MTU raised some questions in the business press about the brevity of his mandate after following a fifteen-year CEO, but public statements framed the change as a mutually agreed handover and TÜV SÜD’s supervisory bodies expressed appreciation for his contribution.

🔍 Challenges at MTU Aero Engines. At MTU, Bussmann faces technical and reputational challenges linked to the GTF engine family, where premature wear of components has required extensive inspections and repairs, straining airlines’ fleets and testing the credibility of the programme’s industrial partners. Analysts have noted that resolving these issues while maintaining MTU’s financial targets and investing in next-generation low-emission propulsion will be a key measure of his success as CEO.

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Other activities and industry influence

🌐 Networks and industry roles. Over the course of his career Bussmann has built an extensive network in the aerospace sector, interacting with airline leaders, aircraft and engine manufacturers, maintenance providers and regulators through forums such as international airshows and MRO conferences. His board-level roles at Lufthansa Technik, TÜV SÜD and MTU, combined with his advisory position at Diehl Stiftung & Co. KG, place him among influential industrial figures in Germany’s aviation and engineering landscape.

📡 Industry positions and advocacy. Beyond his corporate responsibilities, Bussmann has occasionally acted as a spokesperson for broader industry concerns, arguing that aircraft manufacturers should not seek to dominate the aftermarket entirely at the expense of independent MRO providers and advocating for cooperative data-sharing models between airlines, maintenance companies and original-equipment manufacturers. These interventions reflect his belief that technological innovation and competitive markets are best served when data and maintenance know-how are not locked into closed ecosystems.

🧾 Assessment and legacy. Commentators often highlight the breadth of Bussmann’s trajectory—from small-town engineering student to senior roles across multiple blue-chip industrial groups—as emblematic of a modern German engineer-executive who moves fluidly between technical detail and corporate strategy. His career has coincided with major turning points in commercial aviation, from pre-pandemic growth to crisis and recovery, and his stewardship of MTU Aero Engines during a period of technological and environmental transformation is likely to shape how he is ultimately judged within the history of European aerospace industry leadership.

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