“So techt Deutschland” with Igus CEO Frank Blase: First a theater producer, now a billion-dollar entrepreneur

Igus CEO Frank Blase
First a theater producer, now a billion-dollar entrepreneur

January 10, 2024, 9:49 a.m

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With 4,500 employees, Frank Blase drives innovations such as the “Rebel” robot system and has sustainable bicycles made from plastic. On “So techt Deutschland” Blase explains why his company Igus, despite its size, still functions like a startup and why he also produces musicals on the side.

“By the way, I learned to count in this garage,” remembers Frank Blase: In 1964, his parents founded Igus and began producing plastic parts in Bergisch Gladbach. As a student, Blase actually wanted to become a theater and film artist, but in the end he took over the family business and expanded it into a billion-dollar company.

Together with 4,500 employees, Blase promotes innovations such as the “Rebel” robot system and has sustainable bicycles made from plastic. The manager himself prefers to sit in the research department and drive developments forward. “Some things are logical,” he says. Other things like “Rebel” were “such a crazy idea of ​​mine.”

Igus now has 230,000 products in its range and employees who drive innovation themselves, says Blase proudly. “You have to create an environment so that coincidences have a chance,” explains the entrepreneur. “You walk by, see something and have an idea.” Blase happily tells of an entrepreneur friend who was so enthusiastic about the Igus factory that he called it the “biggest startup” in Cologne.

Blase also points to the basic idea of ​​always starting over and thinking: What does the customer get from this idea? In the new episode of “So techt Deutschland”, Frank Blase tells how he turned 200 people from different countries into skilled workers and also produced musicals.