Geschäftsführer

sounds silly but this ones got me and i really should know it. CEO and COO are maybe too high a position i'm translating at the mo. is Executive Manager an acceptable modern translation?

Well it is Managing Director who sits below the C people

you tend to have "managing directors" of private limited companies (Ltd. or GmbH), whereas a public limited company (PLC or AG) will normally have a Chairman and a CEO.

thats the one thanks mate. and cheers OG aswell. i really should have remembered that. been here way too long i guess.

I was always taught 'Managing Director' no matter if it's a GmbH or AG. To me that still sounds a bit odd, (how can you have 7 managing directors? to my mind you can't but there you go)...
Prokurist is even more interesting. Oh, the joys of translation.

Jimbo, there will only ever be one MD. There will be other directors though, which equate to Prokurist, like the FD.

We have two managing directors, both are Geschäftsführer and have equal ownership of the company.

Ah yes. But one is probably just Geschäftsführer and the other is Geschäftsführender Geschäftsführer.

Totally and utterly bizarre

EDIT. Sorry, I meant Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter

you can have joint MD's, can't you?
I used to work for a company in the UK where there were Joint MD's, both with an equal share in the agency.

isn't the term you are looking for "Geschäftsführender Gesellschafter". ie Owner-Manager?

yeah, you are right, yu can have joint-MDs but this is not normal. And the way i interpreted Jimbo's post was that maybe he was confusing the Board of Directors with the term "MD". The Board will be made up of multiple Directors (including the MD, FD and maybe Sales, etc etc) but usually only one is MD, although as you pointed out, there are always exceptions.

Their official titles are both Geschäftsführer. They are brothers and each own half of the company, neither has sole signing authority.

Geschäftsführer = Dumb schmuck.

Tell me about it

Umm, just because you are a Geschäftsführer it doesn't mean that you are an owner. A Geschäftsführer can be an employee. The owner can be a different person.

Also, my company used to have co-MDs, and neither was an owner. They had equal power/responsibility.

I don't think anyone stated that the Geschäftsführer has to be the owner, I just said they are in the case of my company.

There are a number of interpretations for the "Geschäftsführer", along with compositions to define business functions which include it. Leo seems to cover the details quite well