Paravan and Arnold NextG set the course for the future with Lars Soutschka

As General Director, Lars Soutschka is responsible for the strategy, management functions and business development of the Arnold family companies.

Roland Arnold: “With Lars Soutschka, we are gaining a highly competent leader with integrity, who has impressively demonstrated in recent years how change and transformation can be actively shaped and successfully implemented.”

It is a fascinating task to support and further develop the companies in the area of tension between inclusion and technology development, and to be able to help shape the interna-tional expansion of Arnold NextG GmbH." supplemented Lars Soutschka.

As General Director, Lars Soutschka will provide the Arnold family with strategic and operational support as they continue to expand Paravan GmbH, Arnold NextG GmbH, and the other companies. With this newly created position, the Arnold family is taking account of further international growth in its fields of activity. Soutschka will initially focus on the areas of marketing & events, communication, organization & personel, as well as national & international sales. Together with the next generation, Kevin and Luca Arnold, he will spearhead the development of innovative business strategies for PARAVAN GmbH, the global market leader for highly customized vehicle solutions for the disabled, as well as for Arnold NextG GmbH, and chart their course into the future.

Lars Soutschka brings over 20 years of professional experience in the automotive and mobility industry to the table. He holds a degree from the University of Cooperative Education and began his career at Daimler AG in Stuttgart in 2003, where he held the position of Project Manager for Motorsport Communications until 2010. In 2010, he joined ADAC e.V. in Munich. He held various management positions at the world's second-largest automobile club until 2022, most recently as Managing Director for Sales, Communications, Marketing and Customer Service for the more than 21 million members and for Motorsport. The 45-year-old Soutschka grew up in his native town of Riedlingen in Upper Swabia, not far from his current employer in Pfronstetten-Aichelau.

Roland Arnold, founder and managing partner of PARAVAN GmbH, said, "We are pleased to announce the expansion of our management team with the addition of Lars Soutschka. Mr. Soutschka is a highly compe-tent, likeable, and upright leader who has demonstrated his ability to shape and implement change and transformation in recent years. His extensive experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development and implementation, along with his impressive network, make him an invaluable addition to our team." We are pleased to announce that he will now contribute his skills to the operational and strategic development of our companies, thus closely accompanying the very successful path together with the next generation.

"am delighted that in Lars Soutschka we have gained an expert who will also play a key role in the expansion of Arnold NextG GmbH. Mr. Soutschka is an experienced strategist who combines entrepreneurial thinking with operational implementation. He also comes from our home region and is deeply rooted here. He is also very well connected in the mobility and communications industry. "My brother Luca and I are very much looking forward to working with him in the future and wish him a good start and every success." says Kevin Arnold

Lars Soutschka: "I am eager to take on this new professional challenge and to collaborate closely and in a spirit of trust with the Arnold family and my colleagues at the individual companies. It is a fascinating task to support and further develop the companies in the area of tension between inclusion and technology development and to be able to help shape the international expansion of Arnold NextG GmbH." Furthermore, the company headquarters in Pfronstetten is only approximately 15 minutes away from my hometown of Riedlingen. It already feels like a return to my "old" home, where many friends and my family still live.

About Arnold NextG GmbH 

Arnold NextG GmbH is at the forefront of developing safety-by-wire® technology for use on land, in the water, and in the air. The company is also at the cutting edge of developing the globally unique and multi-redundant central control unit NX NextMotion, which enables fail-safe and individual implementation. As an independent advance developer, incubator, and system supplier, Arnold NextG takes on the planning and imple-mentation of projects, from the vision to road approval.

About PARAVAN GmbH

PARAVAN GmbH is the global market leader for highly customized vehicle solutions for the disabled. The company employs approximately 180 individuals at its Pfronstetten Aichelau site and Heidelberg branch, where they develop and produce individually adapted car conversions, power wheelchairs, and specialized driver training. PARAVAN's "one-stop shop concept" represents a holistic approach to its business. The technologi-cal highlight is Space Drive, an intelligent digital control system based on the drive-by-wire principle. Thanks to the active redundancy of the servomotors, it is completely fail-safe and the first with road approval. This innovation enables severely disabled people, some without arms or legs, to drive independently and safely. It is not possible for these drivers to simply intervene in the steering wheel. Space Drive has proven itself on over a billion kilometers of roads worldwide over the past 20 years and is used by numerous industrial customers for test vehicles in the field of autonomous driving. The system is available as a retrofit kit with an open interface for all known vehicle types. For more information, please visit www.paravan.com.