PLYMOUTH, MINN. — Yannick Gaechter has been promoted to Food Application Center director for Bühler’s North American organization, effective Jan. 1, 2020. Mr. Gaechter currently is an international management trainee-chief executive officer. He will report to Andy Sharpe, president and c.e.o. of Bühler North America.

In his new role, Mr. Gaechter will work with the North American regional team to meet business and utilization targets for the Food Application Center (F.A.C.). This includes business development, in terms of identifying new potential applications, products, business models and bringing them to market. He also will set priorities for the F.A.C. workflow as well as manage, coach and support the teams that operate and utilize the F.A.C., and all other application centers across the North American region. He and his team will engage with and be supported by the sales teams to develop customer proposals and fulfill F.A.C. services.

Mr. Gaechter's main responsibilities will be:

• Manage the entire F.A.C., including all aspects of business and operations.
• Manage relationships and cross-functional teams, including customer service engineers and project execution, to ensure all customer needs are met on a timely basis.
• Drive full utilization of the F.A.C., for the benefit of customers and other stakeholders.

Mr. Gaechter joined Bühler in August 2017 from Hilti Tools after completing his master’s degree in entrepreneurship. During this time, he worked in the c.e.o. office as a management trainee and, in August 2018, was appointed project manager for the 2019 Bühler Networking Days. Mr. Gaechter and his team inspired employees, customers and company partners during the Networking Days after a year of thorough planning, Bühler said.

Mr. Gaechter grew up internationally, having lived, studied and worked in Australia, China, Switzerland and Thailand.