True leadership in industrial manufacturing is measured not just by operational results, but by the ability to turn complexity into clarity, to inspire teams to uphold uncompromising standards, and to guide companies toward sustainable growth even in the face of disruption. It is about balancing discipline with vision and building systems that outlast any single leader.
This philosophy finds a powerful example in Michail Theodorakopoulos, a seasoned leader with more than 35 years of experience in mining and metallurgical manufacturing. Today, he serves as Managing Director and Shareholder of NordAlu GmbH, where he is driving a strategic restructuring to restore profitability, optimize operations, and expand the company’s presence in the global market, serving nearly 200 customers worldwide.
Drawing on his expertise in general management, strategic planning, and global sales, he oversees everything from financial planning and budgeting to international growth initiatives. His leadership blends efficiency with collaboration, ensuring NordAlu’s strategies are aligned with market opportunities and designed for long-term success.
A Global Career Shaping NordAlu’s Strategic Future
Michail’s career has been built in places where business success is tested against real-world complexity. His international journey across Europe, Madagascar and West Africa shaped a philosophy that now defines his leadership at NordAlu GmbH: execution matters more than theory, and trust carries greater weight than speed. From permitting processes to turning around large-scale operations, he learned that progress depends on three constants which are rigorous compliance, transparent engagement with stakeholders, and practical engineering solutions.
He began his professional path as a mining and metallurgical engineer, learning the fundamentals on site rather than from a desk. Those early years taught him to combine field observation with disciplined analysis, balancing mass flows, conducting metallurgical accounting, and resolving process inefficiencies. The most important lesson was simple but lasting: measure first, decide second. As his responsibilities expanded, Michail took on broader roles across processing plants and development assets, focusing on hands-on improvements such as commissioning circuits, stabilizing reagent regimes, improving recovery rates, and embedding standard work with supervisors and crews. Alongside technical progress, he came to understand the deeper importance of stakeholder alignment, consistent, respectful dialogue with communities, regulators, and employees.
This commitment to balanced engagement became the cornerstone of his reputation. In Europe, he secured hard-won approvals through extensive scrutiny, including multiple high-court validations in Greece during his time with Hellas Gold. In Côte d’Ivoire, he helped obtain a major permit in just two years, an achievement that underscored how rigorous preparation and open dialogue can accelerate, rather than delay, responsible development.
As his career advanced, Michail stepped into board-level advisory and turnaround leadership, where the focus shifted from daily operations to aligning technical realities with financial truth. He re-baselined business plans, reset KPIs, renegotiated critical contracts, and built resilient teams capable of weathering volatility. Just as importantly, he invested in mentoring the next generation of engineers, guiding them to transform raw data into actionable decisions.
“Safety is not a department—it’s the way we manufacture.”
Across all stages of his career, his leadership has been defined by one standard: safety above all, facts on the table, and rules applied equally to everyone. Today, as Managing Director of NordAlu GmbH, Michail brings that same clarity and discipline to shaping the company’s global ambitions, anchoring German quality systems with the agility and trust needed to compete worldwide.
The Values Behind His Leadership
Michail sees that leadership has always been grounded in principles that leave no room for compromise. Integrity, safety, and accountability were instilled in him early on and remain at the core of his approach. Trained as a metallurgist, he learned the importance of precision: measuring carefully, communicating openly, and putting people’s well-being before anything else.
As his career advanced, he added two pillars that shaped his decision-making: German precision and operational discipline. Every choice, he believes, must be based on data, auditable processes, and repeatable systems. Beyond this, Michail holds a strong belief in mentorship. To him, the role of a leader is not about creating followers but about building the next generation of leaders who can carry the torch forward.
Setting the Course at NordAlu GmbH
When Michail stepped into the role of Managing Director at NordAlu GmbH, his first priority was stabilization. He put health and safety at the center of operations, ensured customer protection, and safeguarded the company’s cash cycle.
The second step was professionalization. This meant tightening governance, clarifying key performance indicators such as yield, OEE, OTIF, and scrap, and aligning the organization around a simple but powerful principle: getting it right the first time.
Finally, his focus turned to smart growth. Instead of chasing expansion for its own sake, he concentrated on strengthening the company’s portfolio, rebuilding trust with strategic partners, and investing in areas that matter most; people, maintenance, and process capability. Each move was made with an eye toward long-term sustainability and competitive strength.
“Tradition sets the standard; innovation keeps us worthy of it.”
Honoring Tradition While Driving Innovation
NordAlu’s history stretches back to 1899, and for Michail, that legacy is both a responsibility and a source of inspiration. He sees tradition as the benchmark for quality, craftsmanship, and reliability. The company continues to uphold century-old standards in tolerances and finishes, but the way it achieves them has been reimagined for today’s world.
From harnessing digital shop-floor data to optimizing energy use and adopting design-for-manufacture practices with customers, Michail ensures that NordAlu remains at the forefront of modern manufacturing. To him, tradition sets the expectation, while innovation ensures the company continues to meet, and exceed, that bar. The result is measurable quality delivered with the responsiveness the market now demands.
“German precision isn’t a slogan; it’s a daily discipline you can measure.”
Sustainability as Engineering Discipline
Michail considers that sustainability is not a slogan, it’s an operational target. Under his leadership, NordAlu has steadily integrated CO₂-reduced materials into production while advancing closed-loop recycling programs with customers. Every tonne of aluminium processed is measured not just for output, but for energy intensity, with a clear goal of driving it down through rigorous maintenance and process control. To Michail, good stewardship aligns naturally with good engineering. It enhances compliance, reduces costs, and ultimately lowers the total cost of ownership for NordAlu’s clients. In his view, sustainability and profitability are not competing priorities, they are inseparable.
Building a Culture of Operational Excellence
Operational excellence at NordAlu is built on facts, not assumptions. Every department is guided by a small set of visible KPIs, ranging from safety leading indicators to first-pass yield, takt adherence, and on-time delivery. Leaders are expected to spend time at the Gemba, coaching teams where the work happens, rather than confining themselves to reports behind a desk.
By combining Lean and TPM practices with structured reviews and recognition for problem-solving, Michail has instilled a culture where standard work is non-negotiable and continuous improvement is celebrated. The outcome is more than operational discipline, it’s a system where profitability flows naturally from consistent execution.
Tackling Transformation Challenges
When Michail took on the challenge of transforming NordAlu, he faced the familiar pressures of any turnaround: inherited issues, unpredictable demand, and equipment in need of attention. Time was short, and the stakes were high. His approach was to strip complexity down to transparent priorities and act with urgency.
Renewing supplier partnerships, directing capital expenditures where they mattered most, and reshaping the culture around safety and quality became the cornerstones of progress. Equally vital was his commitment to open communication with both the works council and employees. By framing the effort as “one team, one standard,” he created the alignment needed to make faster, cleaner decisions, a cultural reset that helped move NordAlu forward.
Staying Competitive in Europe’s Industrial Arena
Europe’s manufacturing sector is evolving at a rapid pace, and Michail knows NordAlu must sharpen its edge to stay ahead. His strategy is not about chasing every opportunity but about doubling down on where the company excels: German precision, dependable lead times, and deep engineering collaboration with customers.
To sustain that advantage, NordAlu is expanding its capabilities in value-added machining and finishing, strengthening logistics, and forging alliances that expand its reach. For Michail, competitiveness is not the result of a single bold initiative. Instead, it’s the compound effect of disciplined daily execution and smart positioning in the marketplace.
Restoring Confidence and Trust
Among the many milestones NordAlu has achieved under his leadership, Michail is most proud of one in particular: re-establishing confidence. Years of challenges had left questions hanging over the company, but through safety upgrades, yield improvements, and renewed strategic partnerships, NordAlu demonstrated it could deliver on demanding timelines without compromising quality.
That renewed trust has had a ripple effect. Customers see NordAlu as a reliable partner, suppliers are eager to collaborate, and financial stakeholders view the company with renewed optimism. Michail sees that the restoration of confidence is more than just an achievement, it is the foundation for sustainable growth and long-term success.
Developing Leaders by Design
Leadership development is not left to chance; it is intentional and carefully structured. At NordAlu, experienced mentors are paired with younger engineers, ensuring that technical expertise and practical wisdom are passed along. Talented employees rotate across production, quality, and maintenance, broadening their understanding of the business and sharpening their skills.
Michail believes the real wins come not from quick fixes but from problem-solving that prevents issues from recurring. In his own role, Michail sees himself as a remover of obstacles, making sure every person understands how their work connects directly to the customer and to the company’s broader strategy.
Ambiguity, he says, is the enemy of performance. That’s why each department has a handful of critical KPIs, with progress made visible and coaching delivered in real time on the shop floor. Celebrating “first-time-right” execution and root-cause fixes reinforces the culture he wants to build. His philosophy is simple: people are naturally capable and motivated, leaders just need to provide clarity, tools, and trust.
Advice for the Next Generation of Industrial Leaders
When asked what guidance he would offer to aspiring managing directors, Michail answers without hesitation: walk the floor every day and listen more than you speak. To him, leadership in industrial manufacturing requires deep familiarity not just with the product, but also with the company’s constraints, cash drivers, and legal obligations.
He encourages future leaders to invest early in safety, maintenance, and people development, describing these not as expenses but as a competitive moat that protects long-term performance. His advice is grounded in respect, for the workforce that makes things possible, for the systems that keep them safe, and for the commitments leaders make.
Above all, he underscores the value of trust. “Clarity beats complexity,” he says, and trust, once earned and honored, compounds over time. It is the quiet force that sustains strong companies and lasting leadership.
“Leaders exist to create more leaders—results follow.”
Finding Motivation in Purpose and Progress
Motivation comes not from vague ideals but from purpose and measurable progress. Michail keeps his focus on a handful of outcomes that truly matter: safety, quality, delivery, cost, and team growth, and celebrates even the small wins that move the company forward. What energizes him most is building organizations that endure beyond any single leader’s tenure and preparing the next generation of industrial leaders to carry the mantle.
He recalls milestones that have shaped his outlook: securing multi-year permits in Greece that were validated at the highest judicial levels, proving that rigorous compliance and respectful dialogue can overcome even entrenched skepticism; achieving a two-year permit in Côte d’Ivoire, where a well-prepared team and transparent process showed that speed and integrity can coexist; and more recently, stabilizing NordAlu’s operations while re-anchoring health and safety as a non-negotiable standard. Each experience reinforced his belief that transformation is possible when clarity, discipline, and trust come together.
A Legacy of Precision and Responsibility
When asked about the legacy he hopes to leave, Michail answers with characteristic clarity: “German precision” is not a slogan, it is discipline multiplied by time. To him, it means standard work carried out with precision, equipment calibrated with care, and people united in their commitment to excellence. Precision, he insists, is the product of culture.
At NordAlu, his vision is to build a resilient, people-first company that demonstrates European manufacturing can be both sustainably run and globally competitive. If the company becomes known for uncompromising quality, responsible operations, and leaders who invest in developing other leaders, Michail will consider the mission fulfilled. That, he believes, is the true measure of success, leaving behind a company and an industry stronger than he found it.
