2024 Wrapped Up: Message From Our CEO, Daniel Jacob

Dear Friends, Colleagues, Business Partners, and All

What an exciting and challenging year that is coming to an end. I believe all of us are looking forward to a break in the coming weeks to recharge our batteries.

With the disruption of old patterns and long lasting “rules”, our beliefs have been challenged again and again in the past years. What worked for us before may not be the solution for the future anymore. We all must re-invent ourselves, our behaviours and our offerings. Digitalisation including AI is bringing new opportunities to STARTEAM and all our stakeholders – therefore, we have to we change our behaviour. The willingness and openness are the foundation of change. It is not the tools but our old patterns that slow down the implementation of new ways of working.

I want to thank all of you who have contributed to and driven several implementations this year, including PAILOT GmbH for our Jiangyou factory production, Luminovo in our quotation process, and Hubspot as our new CRM tool. Our global Quality team further developed Babtec Informationssysteme GmbH as STG’s leading CQA tool, integrating with Manufacturing Execution System (MES) and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) shopfloor interface which will allow all stakeholders to feel the benefits. With these and other new tools, I am confident we have laid the foundation for sustainable growth in the coming years.

Since our transformation from a trading company to a manufacturer in 2018, we have successfully executed a mindset shift and enhanced our customer solutions. Our Prachinburi plant establishes us as the sole European PCB manufacturer in Thailand. We are officially certified with IATF 16949, and with the installation and qualification of our Innerlayer process, we are ready to have all processes in-house. We also offer a wide range of technologies and have successfully obtained qualifications from over 25 customers.

In the global environment we are, in this year alone, we have exhibited at 17 exhibitions in various countries across Asia, Europe, and the US, including the highly anticipated electronicaFair Munich, in which we have received positive feedback. This has expanded our presence and exposure, enhancing our brand image among current customers, partners, and new connections! I believe we will all benefit from our China+1 strategy, reacting quickly and flexibly to different requirements. I am proud of our global TEAMWORK for achieving all goals of the ramp-up in Thailand and we are excited to see our performance in 2025.

In order to underline our manufacturing strategy and to be a global player in the PCB industry, the acquisition of our new plant in Flero, Italy was a logical consequence. With the concept to be digitally and globally connected, all our 3 manufacturing sides are running on the same systems. This means that you only need to set-up your projects once, saving cost and time. In a world where time to market plays a bigger role, we believe that you can gain a competitive advantage with this approach. Additionally, as part of our Global Material Alignment project, we are working on standardising major materials (such as base material, solder mask, and surface finish) across all factories to ensure consistent quality and safety stock. Using the same materials globally is not always easy to realise but with our partners in the supply chain, we have been able to make significant progress. We are also shifting from Traditional Solder Mask Process to the revolutionary Additive Solder Mask Process with our strategic partnerships with Notion Systems and Peters Group in our factory in Italy – which leads to cost-efficient, eco-friendly PCB production. Please come visit us in our 2 new locations Thailand and Italy to feel what STARTEAM stands for!

Last but not least, our biggest and high-performing production site in Jiangyou, China continues to grow. This year we kicked-off the expansion as in 9 of the past 11 months, we had a loading of 95%+ and continue to see an increase in new projects. This is only possible with the growing trust and sustainable performance. Depending on the loading and economic development in the coming months, we will double our capacity step by step in Jiangyou with an AI-based fine planning powered by PAILOT and fully automated manufacturing process. As I mentioned in the beginning, the challenge is our mind-set and I am grateful that our team in Jiangyou is open minded, driving this development.

Being in the PCB industry since 1988 and 100% family owned, sustainability holds great importance to me. In all areas of ESG we continue to learn, invest and reduce CO2 emissions. Over the past year, we have been committed to several initiatives including Science Based Target initiatives (SBTi), United Nations Global Compact, Climate Ambition Accelerator, and EcoVadis, reflecting our dedication. As well, our main offices in Hong Kong, China, and Germany are ISO 27001 certified, ensuring they uphold the highest standards of information security – and this is just the start.

This year, our CTO Martin Schneider launched our CO2 calculator which is – as far we know – unique in the industry. We can now calculate based on all influencing factors the CO2 emission of your PCBs in our factory; please reach out to him and his team for more details. One of our latest exciting projects, we have worked with one end-customer to create ceramic PCBs, which is 100% recyclable, promoting circular economy. We have also recently started working with a leading laminator in Asia to innovate a recyclable FR-4 base material—a move that could greatly impact the PCB industry.

We, humans, have the power to make the difference and it is our duty to steer it towards a positive direction. I am grateful to see our next generation in STARTEAM growing including my eldest son Pablo who has been working since the beginning of the year in our Thailand factory. Yes, they are different in the way of thinking, but at the same time, they inspire me to re-visit old beliefs and patterns with the goal of staying young and innovative in the coming years. I am very excited about the upcoming projects we have in store for you. I heartedly thank everyone — all our colleagues, partners, and customers — for believing in us, being a part of our journey, and enabling us to come this far.

Looking forward with all of you for an exciting and fulfilling year 2025 – stay healthy!

Yours Daniel