Mr Bolch will succeed Gordon Ulsh, Exide’s current CEO, who will retire and step down from the board on July 26. Mr Ulsh, who has served Exide in this leadership capacity since April of 2005, had previously informed the board of his intention to retire as part of the company’s long-term succession planning process.
Mr Bolch, currently serves as senior vice president and president of industrial technologies sector at Ingersoll Rand Company. He joined Ingersoll Rand in 2005 from Schindler Elevator, where as executive vice president of the service business, he led the North American services functions, including sales, marketing and service delivery.
Prior to his tenure at Schindler Elevator, Mr Bolch spent 21 years with United Technologies (UTC), starting in engineering with UTC optical systems as business area manager, later moving to Otis Elevator Company. Between 1991 and 1999, he held positions of increasing responsibility at Otis in operations, services and product administration. He progressed to vice president, Otis Global Service, a $3bn business that serviced more than one million elevators globally.
In his last role at UTC, he served as vice president, operations, for the UTC power division, where he created and implemented business strategies to commercialize fuel cell production for distributed generation and transportation markets.
Mr Bolch, said: “I am honored and proud to succeed Gordon Ulsh as president and CEO of Exide Technologies. With its innovative technologies and rapidly expanding R&D and Engineering initiatives, technology partnerships, a growing service business and the right mix of people, processes and products, Exide is well positioned to accelerate its growth in today’s dynamic and challenging marketplace.”
