Management Team

Ms. Ryan has served as a director and as President and Chief Executive Officer of the Company since December 2021. Prior to becoming Chief Executive Officer, Ms. Ryan was the Company’s Executive Vice President, beginning in June 2021. Prior to that role, she served as President of the Company’s Coperion business beginning in September 2015, also overseeing Hillenbrand’s Rotex business during part of that period. She previously served as President of Batesville beginning in April 2011, at which time she was also named a Senior Vice President of Hillenbrand. Ms. Ryan began her career with Batesville in 1989, holding positions of increasing responsibility within Batesville and the Company’s former parent in finance, strategy, operations, logistics, and information technology.

Since 2014, Ms. Ryan has also served on the Board of Directors of Kimball International, Inc., a public manufacturing company, including as a member of the Audit Committee. She also served as Board Chair from November 2018 to October 2021. She served on the Board of Directors of Conexus Indiana from December 2018 to July 2021.

Robert (Bob) VanHimbergen has been Senior Vice President & Chief Financial Officer at Hillenbrand since April 2022. Prior to that, he was Hillenbrand’s Executive Vice President, Finance since March 2022. He joined the Company from Johnson Controls International plc (“Johnson Controls”), where he was most recently Vice President, Corporate Controller since December 2017. He spent 15 years at Johnson Controls, serving in various roles of increasing responsibility, including as chief financial officer of Yangfeng Automotive Interiors in Shanghai, China. Prior to Johnson Controls, Mr. VanHimbergen spent nearly a decade at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP working with large multinational manufacturing companies. Mr. VanHimbergen also serves as the Chair of Ascension Wisconsin Foundation (since October 2015) and the Campaign Leader for the American Heart Association in Milwaukee (since January 2021).

Bob is active in non-for-profit organizations and currently serves as Chairman for the Ascension Southeast Wisconsin Board and Chairman for the Ascension Wisconsin Foundation.  Bob is the 2023 campaign leader for the American Heart Association for Milwaukee, WI.  He previous spent time on various other Milwaukee location non-for-profit boards and was named one of the Milwaukee Philanthropic 5 award winners in 2021.

Ling An-Heid has been President of Mold-Masters since 2017. Before then, she served as President of Mold-Masters Americas and Asia from 2013 to 2017. Ms. Heid joined the Applications Design Group at Mold-Masters in 1991 and was instrumental in developing the region as president of Mold-Masters Asia until 2013.

Before Mold-Masters, she served as a General Manager and legal representative of Beijing Plastic Mechanical Co Ltd. She holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Plastics Mechanical Engineering from the Beijing Chemical University and also holds an EMBA from the Rotman School of Management in Toronto.

She acts as the Vice Director of the China Die and Mold Industry Association.

Ulrich Bartel was named President of Coperion and Senior Vice President of Hillenbrand in June 2021. Since June 2022, he has also served as President of Advanced Process Solutions, in which role he also oversees the Company’s Rotex business. Prior to leading Coperion, Mr. Bartel had been President of Coperion’s Polymer Division and a member of Coperion’s Executive Board.

Prior to his role as Division President, Mr. Bartel held several positions within Coperion. From 2013 to 2020, he was Vice President of Compounding Machines. Before that, from 2009 to 2013, Mr. Bartel was President and CEO of a Coperion subsidiary in Ramsey, New Jersey, focused on sales and manufacturing, with responsibility for Coperion locations in Wytheville, Virginia and Houston, Texas.

Mr. Bartel has experience in all aspects of the business from sales and service to process technology, engineering, manufacturing, and research. During his tenure at Coperion, Mr. Bartel completed several other international assignments, including in Singapore, Japan, and Nanjing, China, where he was responsible for the integration of Keya, a manufacturer of twin screw extruders, following its acquisition by Coperion. He began his career with Coperion in 1990 as a process engineer.

Michael (Mac) Jones is President of Milacron Injection Molding & Extrusion and Senior Vice President of Hillenbrand. He previously served as President of Milacron Advanced Plastics Processing Technologies (APPT) Americas and Europe businesses since January 2019. Prior to that time, he held a number of senior leadership positions within Milacron including roles as VP of Finance & Investor Relations and Sr. VP Finance & Operations.

Before joining Milacron, he held finance positions at GE Aviation, the aerospace division of General Electric Company, from 2012 – 2015. Mr. Jones also held positions at Hill-Rom between 2004 and 2011. He is a graduate of the University of Kentucky with a B.S. in Accounting, received an MBA from The Ohio State University, and is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive).

Nicholas (Nick) Farrell is Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary of Hillenbrand. Mr. Farrell began his career with the Company in 2011 and served in various roles in the Company’s Legal Department until being named General Counsel in 2015. He also served as the Company’s Chief Compliance Officer from 2016 to 2023.

Prior to joining Hillenbrand, Mr. Farrell was in private practice for six years with global law firm Troutman Sanders.

Mr. Farrell is also Chair of the Board of Cure SMA, an international not-for-profit organization committed to developing a cure for spinal muscular atrophy, the number one genetic cause of death in infants. 

J. Michael (Mike) Whitted has been Hillenbrand’s Senior Vice President Corporate Development since June 2018. Prior to joining the Company, Mr. Whitted served as Vice President, Corporate Development for SPX Corporation and SPX Flow, Inc. from 2001 to 2015. Prior to that, he served as a Vice President for Bear Stearns from 1998 to 2001, where he led corporate finance and M&A advisory transactions.

Mr. Whitted’s experience prior to Bear Stearns included corporate finance and M&A advisory roles at CIBC World Markets, Bankers Trust, and First Chicago NBD.

Aneesha Arora has served as the Company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer since January 2022. Ms. Arora brings two decades of strategic human resource experience, serving most recently as Vice President of Global HR Services for Honeywell International Inc. (“Honeywell”), a diversified technology and manufacturing company, from October 2019 through December 2021.

Prior to that, she served as Vice President, Global Human Resources and Communications Safety and Productivity Solutions for Honeywell from November 2016 to October 2019. Ms. Arora began her career at Honeywell in 2002, serving in various diverse and global human resources roles of increasing responsibility across multiple industry segments with a focus on talent to increase customer and shareholder value.

Leo Kulmaczewski has served as the Corporation’s Sr. Vice President, Operations Center of Excellence and HOM since February 2021. Mr. Kulmaczewski brings more than 20 years of technical and manufacturing experience, serving most recently as Senior Vice President of Operations and Lean Enterprise of Belden Inc., a manufacturer of networking, connectivity, and cable products, from October 2018 through November 2020. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of Operations, Global Supply Chain, and Danaher Business Systems at Leica Biosystems, a research, instrument, and medical device company that is a division of Danaher Corporation, from September 2016 through September 2018. During the time at Leica Biosystems, Mr. Kulmaczewski also served as Senior Director and Vice President of Operations and Site Leader, from May 2014 through September 2016. Mr. Kulmaczewski’s experience before Leica Biosystems included technical and manufacturing roles with generally increasing levels of responsibility at various other public and private manufacturing companies.

Carole Phillips was named Senior Vice President and Chief Procurement Officer in January 2023. She joined Hillenbrand in September 2022.

Carole is responsible for driving strategy and initiatives related to Global Supply Management, including center-led procurement activities, and helping identify and achieve savings across the organization.

Prior to joining Hillenbrand, Carole served as the Vice President of Global Supply Management at Stanley Black & Decker, where she helped establish dedicated sourcing and procurement workstreams to support all due diligence and acquisitions and de-risk dependencies in key regions. Prior to joining Stanley Black & Decker, Ms. Phillips held various leadership positions at Eaton and Lionel LLC.

Bhavik Soni serves as the Company's Senior Vice President, Chief Information Officer. He held the role of Vice President, Chief Information Officer since May 2017, and was promoted to the Company’s Executive Management Team in May 2019. Mr. Soni joined the Company from Honda Aircraft Company, where he served as Chief Information Officer – IT & Engineering Systems Division from 2015 to 2017.

Prior to that, he served as Chief Information Officer for Artificial Lift, GE Oil & Gas at General Electric Company (“GE”) from 2013 to 2015, preceded by fifteen years in other information technology-related roles of increasing responsibility at GE. Mr. Soni’s experience prior to GE included software engineering roles at Rockwell Collins, Inc. and General Dynamics Corporation.

Tory Flynn has served as Hillenbrand’s Chief Sustainability Officer since March 2021. Flynn was most recently the VP of Corporate Communications at Athene, where she helped steer corporate responsibility. She first joined Hillenbrand in 2015, where she led the implementation of the company’s global corporate responsibility strategy and served on the Milacron integration team. She was instrumental in taking the company through its ESG materiality assessment, which culminated in the signing of the United Nations Global Compact in 2019.

Prior to joining Hillenbrand, she was the spokesperson and head of communications for the Indiana House of Representatives and served in a variety of government affairs roles in Washington, D.C.