A new phase of life begins: Our trainees celebrate their successful graduation and start at the KLS Martin Group!
Training: Check! Our trainees celebrate the successful completion of their training After three intensive and instructi […]
KLS Martin News • July 29, 2025
Thomas Hipp shares his story | Back to my roots – How KLS Martin led me home
When I joined KLS Martin in 2018, it meant not just a new professional chapter for me but also a return to my old home – the Tuttlingen region, where I grew up.
I spent my childhood and youth here, graduating from the Immanuel Kant Gymnasium. I was active in tennis, soccer, and gymnastics clubs, completed my military service in Neuhausen ob Eck, and then trained as a bank clerk in Tuttlingen. That banking apprenticeship laid a solid foundation – it provided me with practical experience and reinforced my enthusiasm for the world of numbers. I had initially considered studying math and sports, but finance increasingly captivated me.
A business administration degree took me north – through Regensburg and Tübingen to Stuttgart and finally to the Frankfurt/Rhine-Main area. That path was the result of my professional and personal life. There, my career progressed from banking to business studies and on to becoming a tax advisor, auditor, and ultimately a CFO. My time in auditing especially shaped me: demanding, educational, and full of valuable insights into a wide range of companies. The collaborative spirit stood out: If the team harmonizes and the interaction is respectful, even challenging phases can be managed successfully.
Over time, though, the bureaucratic side of the job began to dominate. Checklists and formal requirements increasingly pushed aside real engagement with the companies. That’s when the desire grew in me to work long-term for an industrial company – to help shape its development and build sustainable structures.
That I ended up back in Tuttlingen was a fortunate twist of fate. Today, I live close to my family again, have rejoined the tennis club – and now play alongside my former tennis students.
My connection to KLS Martin came through a headhunter offering me a position in a “peaceful little town in Baden-Württemberg” – a town I, of course, knew inside and out. One of my sisters had already completed her dual studies at Gebrüder Martin. Conversations with Karl and Christian Leibinger quickly convinced me that the combination of a family-driven corporate culture, strategic direction, and long-term perspective was an ideal match for my ideas, experiences, and values.
KLS Martin is an outstanding company in a beautiful growth industry, with exceptional employees and enormous potential. What matters now is balancing the agility and short decision paths of a family-owned business with the strategic unification of processes and structures in the spirit of a larger corporation.
Joining KLS Martin was one of the best decisions for me – I have never regretted it and I am looking forward to the exciting challenges ahead.
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