Thorsten Schlechtriem

CEO GUS Group

Last Reviewed: September 27, 2026

Executive Summary

Thorsten Schlechtriem is CEO of GUS Group, a Cologne-based group of business software companies that is part of the manufacturing cluster of the GENII Software Group. He took over the management of GUS Holding GmbH on 1 April 2024. As Group CEO he answers for its subsidiaries and leads strategy, product development, sales and operations. His whole career has been in mid-market business software. He spent more than a decade running mid-market and ERP sales at Sage, then served as Chief Operating Officer of document management vendor EASY Software, and now leads a group whose ERP products are aimed at process industries such as food, pharmaceuticals and chemicals.

Career Highlights

• CEO of GUS Group and managing director of GUS Holding GmbH since 1 April 2024, succeeding long-serving managing director Ekkehard Ziesche.
• Responsible at GUS Group for operations, product, sales and customer success, working alongside CFO Thomas Seidler.
• Chief Operating Officer of EASY Software from 2022, hired to move its licensing toward subscription and cloud business.
• Led mid-market (SMB) and ERP sales at Sage for more than ten years.
• Earlier served as Country Manager at IT security company Avira.

Professional Journey

Schlechtriem’s earliest recorded role is Country Manager at Avira, the German IT security company. He then spent more than ten years at Sage, the British business software group, where he led sales in the mid-market and ERP segment. Trade press later described that SMB business as the mainstay of Sage’s ERP operation.

In 2022 he joined EASY Software, the document management company based in Mülheim an der Ruhr, as Chief Operating Officer. He was recruited by chief executive Andreas Zipser, a former Sage colleague. connect professional reported in March 2022 that his remit was to develop new licensing models, moving EASY toward subscriptions and cloud business.

On 1 April 2024, at 52, he took over the management of GUS Holding GmbH and became Group CEO of GUS Group. The group had then listed ten subsidiaries, from GUS ERP and GUS Schweiz to Brückner System, dibac Software and Sopra System. Announcing the move, he said his first priority was to develop the group’s products around new customer requirements and technologies. He planned a stronger vertical focus on GUS’s target industries: food, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, medical technology, cosmetics, dairy production and logistics. He succeeded Ekkehard Ziesche, who had shaped the group over more than two decades.

GUS Group now presents itself as a group of companies that develops, implements and operates software covering a business’s whole operating cycle, with several hundred customers in manufacturing, retail, wholesale, public administration and laboratories. Its website lists five group companies: GUS ERP GmbH, GUS Schweiz AG, Brückner System GmbH, dibac GmbH and Sopra System GmbH. The group is part of the manufacturing cluster of the GSG GENII Software Gruppe, and Schlechtriem heads it with responsibility for operations, product, sales and customer success.

Education

No education record was found in any source read for this profile.