As of 1 September 2022, Oliver Möllenstädt is to resume his job as managing director of the German plastics processing industry group Gesamtverband Kunststoffverarbeitende Industrie (GKV, Berlin; www.gkv.de). He succeeds Julia Große-Wilde, who first took over the helm of the GKV from him on 1 January 2021 and has since left the association.

For the 44-year-old Möllenstädt, who holds a doctorate in industrial engineering, the GKV is more or less a home match. He was with group from 2011 to 2020 before becoming MD of a German association of property administrators at the beginning of 2021.

The management board at the GKV under new president Helen Fürst (see Plasteurope.com of 11.07.2022), likely hopes above all that the return of Möllenstädt will bring some calm back to the association of convertors, and that substantive work will take centre stage. The trade group recently made headlines through internal quarrels and its spectacular exclusion of TecPart (Frankfurt; www.tecpart.de), which represents manufacturers of technical plastics products (see Plasteurope.com of 24.06.2022).

Related: Interview with new GKV president Fürst

Previously, almost nothing had been heard from the GKV for many months, and there had been no news of any activities. On the other hand, the group does have many issues to tackle, ranging from the eternal conflict with plastics producers and issues with increasing regulations coming from Brussels to the ever-present topic of public image.