Circus Group SE: appoints VP Hardware and Manufacturing

Hamburg / DE. (ca1) Circus Group SE, a leading AI robotics company specialising in autonomous kitchen systems, announced the appointment of Haomiao Fang as Vice President of Hardware & Manufacturing. Haomiao strengthens the Circus leadership team with a wealth of experience in automated industrial manufacturing, and strategic leadership. He joins the Munich office from the UK.

Haomiao Fang will be responsible for providing strategic direction and leadership to the hardware and manufacturing teams and further expand the Circus Group’s global production capacities from 1,000 to over 20,000 units per year in the coming years.

Haomiao Fang joins Circus from EV Maker Arrival Limited, where he has served as Director of Manufacturing Engineering. In this role, he led a team of multi-skilled engineers, program managers and operations experts to deliver industrialization solutions for Arrival’s global vehicle portfolio, ensuring end-to-end delivery from concept planning to production. Prior to joining Arrival, Haomiao led the robotic process automation for various models at Nissan Motor Manufacturing (UK) Limited.

With a proven track record in high-volume production, particularly in the manufacturing and robotics sectors, Haomiao Fang brings deep expertise in automation solution design and technical management. His experience in delivering complex projects within large organisations positions him as the ideal leader for Circus Group’s hardware and manufacturing efforts.

Commenting on his appointment, Haomiao Fang said: «I’m thrilled to join Circus and work on the vision of revolutionizing food production through cutting-edge technologies, and I’m eager to bring my years of manufacturing and automation experience to Circus and work closely with the talented teams. I’m especially looking forward to scaling our global production volumes and delivering an unparalleled solution for the food industry.»

Nikolas Bullwinkel, CEO and Founder of Circus Group: «We are delighted to welcome Haomiao to our leadership team. His expertise in robotic automation and high-volume manufacturing as well as his global network in the automotive industry will be key to rapidly scale our volume production of the CA-1. Haomiao will drive our mission to revolutionize the food industry. We are thrilled to welcome him from the UK to join us in Munich.»

The Circus Group has more than 8,000 pre-ordered units of the CA-1 with a sales value of around 1.6 billion US dollars on its order books to date, after winning Lukas Podolski’s Mangal Döner x LP10, FLC Group, Berlin Brandenburg Airport and the Beijing University Food Raw Material Joint Procurement Center for the targeted deployment of its autonomous food robots.

Following the appointments of Ilona Schukina as Circus’ new VP Business Development and Alastair Wong as VP of Process Engineering, the addition of this key leadership role further positions Circus to accelerate its mission of making affordable, high-quality meals accessible through advanced autonomous technology. The company is set to enter a new phase of commercialization, supported by its expanded leadership team and a strong commitment to operational excellence.