Attila Arian Leaving Schuco USA, Plans to Stay in the US Industry

After nearly a decade of leading Schuco USA as president, Attila Arian has decided it’s time for a change. While he hasn’t yet announced the exact path he will take, he does know one thing is certain.

“I will stay in the U.S. and stay loyal to this industry. I will work with people who want to build sophisticated and beautiful buildings and continue to build teams with the common goal to support and enhance knowledge transfer in the industry,” he says. “What you know me for will stay the same; only the background will change.”

Arian told USGNN™ that he decided it was time to move on after realizing he had accomplished much of what he had set out to do at Schuco USA.

Schuco USA president Attila Arian told USGNN™ that he decided it was time to move on after realizing he had accomplished much of what he had set out to do at Schuco USA.

“We’ve repositioned the brand completely and built a very strong and powerful team with uniquely qualified members and professionals. We listened to the market and found that customers wanted us to change how we brought our products to market. So, we set up a production facility in the U.S., and we are the only Schuco subsidiary in the world producing the Schuco product itself,” says Arian, explaining this was a significant shift for the company, whose traditional business model is as a European wholesale system supplier. He says it was a major effort to transform the organization to meet that market demand.

“Also, I put the entire team behind the mission to improve the built environment and to become a resource for energy-efficient envelopes. The market response has been well to all of this. And I feel it’s time to move on,” he says.

Arian says he is very grateful to Schuco and the past ten years and the opportunities they have provided.

“One of my greatest accomplishments is having been actively involved in forming the Virtual Construction Lab in New York, which was developed as a Research and Development Lab. with the intent of sharing our findings with the industry and empowering fabricators and installers,” he adds.

Before joining Schuco, Arian was president of seele’s U.S. operations. He has an engineering degree from TU Darmstadt/Germany and more than 30 years of senior and executive level experience in residential and commercial construction both in the U.S. and Europe. In 2021 USGlass magazine named Arian one of the “Industry’s Most Influential People.”

Having worked for the U.S. operations of two German companies, Arian says there are some differences in business practices between the two countries.

“Germans have a way of engineering a product, and the process is dramatically different than what we’re used to in the U.S.,” he says. For example, in Germany, he explains that most engineers are given a task and time to complete the task and come up with a solution.

“In the U.S., we like to do things in a brainstorming fashion. This is frustrating for the German engineer because he takes the task and wants to work on the solution, but while he’s doing that, he’s not engaged in and responding to all the brainstorming emails, so it seems like he’s not participating,” says Arian. “Then, by the time the engineer is done, the team has moved on. So it’s a big cultural difference.”

Arian talked more about some of the differences in the U.S. and German glazing industries during a 2013 interview with USGlass magazine. That conversation begins on page 56 in the September 2013 issue.

Arian’s last day with Schuco will be April 30. He says he will announce his next career move soon.