On its surface, one might think roofing isn’t all that complicated and certainly wouldn’t require a physicist to help solve problems and innovate. But when Beacon wanted to level up its commercial roofing business, it turned to the big guns.
Enter Birte von Schwarzenfeld, who, for the last two years, has brought strategic and inventive ideas to the roofing distributor’s commercial business with an impressive combination of high-level education and business acumen shaped by working with big-name manufacturers.
Throw in a love of travel — Schwarzenfeld says it’s rare for her not to go on at least one international vacation in a year — and Beacon found an ambassador for its commercial business.
“My approach was always, ‘Huh. Well, it seems complicated. Let's see if we can figure it out,’” she said. “When you have that interest to learn something, you can then also make an impact with that if you spend the time to do the trainings, learn about it, ask the questions, be curious.”
An Inquisitive Mind
Born and raised in Germany, Schwarzenfeld (pronounced SHVAR’-tsen-felt) grew up enjoying math and science. When deciding what to study in college, a science teacher encouraged her to consider physics.
“I always wanted to understand how the world works. ‘Why is the sky blue?’ Black holes – those kinds of things always fascinated me,” she said. “So I studied that. I was also very happy to hear that you don’t have to stay in physics if you study physics. At least in Germany, that was the case at the time, because it’s just generally seen as a good foundation for several lines of work.”
Companies worldwide can appreciate the logical techniques and problem-solving skills involved in figuring out complex concepts. With this seed planted, Schwarzenfeld’s journey into the business world began in the fourth year of her five-year degree program when she attended Duke University through an exchange program.
“It really was a great experience, I loved the way the U.S. approaches certain topics, loved the weather and the business environment,” she said.
That love of the U.S. remained when she returned to Berlin to finish her degree. She sought out a career in the States, which led her to the Boston Consulting Group. She worked as a consultant with Fortune 500 companies for seven years, and through support from a company program, she earned a master of business administration from Harvard Business School.
“Because I didn’t want to go back to academia, I thought, ‘Hey, doing an MBA would be great,’” she said. “Afterwards, I was very fortunate. My company at the time said, ‘Do you want to come back to Germany or do you want to go somewhere else in the world?’”
It was a significant time for Schwarzenfeld, who had just married her husband before earning the MBA. If given the option, they both thought moving to San Francisco would be great, so they headed to the Golden State. However, consulting wasn’t Schwarzenfeld’s end goal. When it came time for a switch, she desired a company that created tangible goods, having gained an appreciation for the hardware and industrial goods space.
In 2013, she joined Flex as a director of corporate strategy. As only science communicators can do, she explained Flex in basic terms, describing it as a company that “makes physical stuff on behalf of other companies.” Apple, for instance, often uses a third party to manufacture its devices.
She remained with Flex for five years, climbing the ladder to become vice president and general manager of global account management. Her journey took her closer to roofing when, in 2019, she joined power tool manufacturer HILTI North America, eventually becoming senior vice president of corporate strategy and development.
Then, the fated call of roofing finally reached her ears in the form of Beacon Building Products, offering her the position of senior vice president of commercial solutions. She took on the role in August 2022, relocating to Dallas after 10 years of living in San Francisco.
“The people are very welcoming,” she said of the roofing industry. “Beacon, at the time when they hired me, they hired a couple of other people — my boss, for example — that were not consciously from the roofing industry to infuse ideas from the outside.”
Applied Science
That outside perspective came at the right time. In 2022, the supply chain was in chaos due to post-pandemic conditions, with people buying up what supplies they could and stockpiling them. As a result, suppliers didn’t sell as much in the following year since contractors already had materials. Schwarzenfeld said it made for interesting but fascinating times.
“It never gets boring,” she said, chuckling. “People who have been in the industry for a long time keep telling me, ‘Well, typically there's a pattern, but at least those last years — ‘22, ‘23, and now ‘24 still to some extent — is so unusual. So it's fascinating. It's really fun to be in that.”
Birte von Schwarzenfeld serves as senior vice president, commercial solutions. Photo courtesy of Beacon.
As Beacon recognized the growing importance of its commercial products, it wanted to support businesses that rely on those products and residential contractors looking to diversify. Schwarzenfeld described her role as being an ambassador for commercial roofing both internally and externally.
“There are people with Beacon today that have been loving commercial their whole life … they know you can make good money. So for me, I’m now working with this group of individuals that are so passionate about their business but couldn’t easily share this passion and best practices in the past,” she said.
Although the 43-year-old senior vice president doesn’t hail from a roofing background, her experience with HILTI and other companies gave her insight into trends, such as the digitization of the construction industry and project tracking. Even so, she had to learn roofing from scratch, but as her academic successes prove, she’s been a quick study.
“The team was very helpful and open, everyone from my direct team to vendors who said, ‘Hey, come to a training, we’ll show you how to lay down a flat roof,’” she says. “I’ve done that now a couple times, and it still is a great learning [experience] … especially in commercial roofing, there’s a lot of technical detail and I cannot claim to know all of that, but at least I got an overview now from a lot of team members.”
One of her favorite aspects of the job is going into the field and working with branches. At the time we spoke, Schwarzenfeld was deploying sales best practices in 20 cities and had recently returned from a trip to Phoenix, where she met with sales and branch staff.
“We talked through what processes do you have, and what are the gaps? What can we do differently?” she said. “We organized a contractor fair where we invited contractors to see what we have to offer, the expertise we have to help them grow their business.”
When not in the field, she is in her office or at home working on initiatives and devising strategies to help commercial contractors. One such initiative was launching the Commercial Academy late last year, a set of online courses and hands-on experiences that give participants a better understanding of commercial roofing.
“We have over 350 people that we trained and over 150 people that have gotten a certification on commercial roofing,” she said.
Women in Roofing
As we spoke, the conversation turned to how the industry can bring more women into roofing. As a woman in a high-ranking position at Beacon, Schwarzenfeld advocates for it where she can. She has sat on the jury that helps select Beacon’s annual Female Roofing Professional of the Year. She also attends events held by National Women in Roofing, National Roofing Partners and the International Roofing Expo.
She says while some segments of roofing may always have a majority of men in them, such as warehousing or labor, there are plenty of opportunities for women to claim their stake in the multi-billion dollar industry.
“Drivers can be female, a lot of our people behind the counter when you walk into our branch are female, and we now have more branch managers who are female,” she said. “And then, of course, all of the corporate jobs … you can get a lot of really great women to work in marketing and finance and accounting, IT, all those things.”
It’s a subject she’s passionate about, especially as she and her husband raise their 12-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son. Her advice to women in the industry applies to anyone else looking to enter it as well: don’t be discouraged by topics that appear complicated.
“If you have the right team surrounding you, and if you have the right trainings, I think this (roofing) is something that everybody can tackle,” she said. “If you surround yourself with the right resources, you can learn it easily and you can make even more of an impact.”
