Susanne Kaludra is the new operations manager of the EKO daycare centers in Offenbach

The Eigenbetrieb Kindertagesstätten Offenbach (EKO) has a new management team: Susanne Kaludra (44 years old) has been the new operations manager at the provider of Offenbach's municipal daycare centers since July 2024. She is supported by Annette Gork, who has been deputy manager of the company since 2019 and will continue to be. There are currently 29 daycare centers throughout Offenbach under municipal management. Four of these are all-day classes that work closely with elementary school, as well as 25 daycare centers that combine crèche (U3 area), kindergarten (3 to 6 years) and after-school care (6 to 10 years) in various constellations. In total, the EKO offers around 4,000 childcare places in its facilities.

Until now, the head of the Youth Welfare Office was also the EKO's operations manager. "Strengthening the child and youth sector is very important to me in our exceptionally young city. The EKO has grown steadily in recent years and so have the challenges. It was therefore logical to strengthen the management with a full-time position. In Ms. Kaludra, we have found a competent operations manager," said Sabine Groß, Head of the Children and Youth Department and Mayor.

"The EKO has a very good reputation beyond the borders of Offenbach," says Susanne Kaludra. "I am therefore delighted to be working together with the teams in the EKO daycare centers and the administration to ensure that we can continue to live up to this reputation and offer high-quality educational work for children and families." In times of a shortage of skilled workers, this is not always easy, which is why she pays particular attention to ensuring that new strategies and work processes, especially with the possibilities offered by digitalization, can relieve the burden on families, daycare teams and administration.

Susanne Kaludra currently lives in the Offenbach district and previously lived directly in the city of Offenbach for several years. "I've always felt very comfortable here, so I'm very happy to be back in Offenbach more often, not only professionally but also personally," she explains. After several years at the Federal Employment Agency, where she worked in a variety of roles from placement officer to team leader, project manager, technical expert and trainer, the sociology and education graduate spent several years working for the city of Bad Homburg. There she was responsible for the management of childcare, child day care, specialist supervision and independent providers. In 2020, Susanne Kaludra moved to the city of Rödermark, where she held a similar position as Head of Social Affairs until recently.

"We are delighted that we have been able to recruit Susanne Kaludra," says Deputy Head of Operations Annette Gork. "Especially in times of a shortage of specialist staff in daycare centers, we need innovative ideas and want to break new ground in order to be able to care for and support the children in Offenbach at a high educational level despite everything."

In her new position, Susanne Kaludra replaces Roberto Priore, who was the joint operations manager of the EKO and the Youth Welfare Office from 2019 to 2024 and has been fully available to the Youth Welfare Office since July 2024.