Martin Weiss (56), Chairman of the Management Board of Hubert Burda Media since January 2022, will leave the company in January 2024.
Elisabeth Burda Furtwängler (32) and Dr. Jacob Burda (34) will take over entrepreneurial and publishing responsibility for the media Group Hubert Burda Media from their father Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda (84) as of February 1, 2025. This was announced today (Wednesday, December 18, 2024) at the meeting of the Board of Directors of the internationally operating media Group. From February on, the fourth Burda generation will steer the family-owned company, which has been active in publishing since 1903.
“We have consciously decided to take on this entrepreneurial task now, during politically and economically challenging times. We will continue to drive the transformation of our family business — mindful of tradition and open for the new.”
Elisabeth Burda Furtwängler
“It is a great honour and responsibility to continue our father's legacy in the fourth generation. Burda is at a pivotal stage where it is crucial to set the right course for our nearly 10,000 employees and for society. I am very excited to be a part of this in the future."
Dr. Jacob Burda
Dr. Jacob Burda and Elisabeth Burda Furtwängler have been shareholders since 2010 and members of the Board of Directors, the Group's highest management body, since 2017.
As part of the generational change, Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda will retire from the Group's Board of Directors at the end of January 2025, just before his 85th birthday. As a General Partner and Honorary Chairman of the Holding company, he will remain associated with the company, which he has led with sole publishing responsibility since 1986 and expanded into an international media group. Prof. Dr. Hubert Burda: “The truly unique thing about a family business is that the company never belongs to just one person. You are responsible for it on behalf of the next generation. I am grateful for having taken over a healthy publishing house from my parents around 40 years ago. Now, I can hand over a versatile media company to my children.”
Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen (67), Chairman of the Board of Directors, will step down from the Board of Directors and thus from responsibility for the Group. Together with Dr. Hubert Burda, he played a decisive role in shaping the company to its current size and diversity over 28 years as a member and later Chairman of the Burda Group's Executive Board. Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen joined Burda in 1996 as Managing Director. In this role, he was responsible for the commercial activities, the international publishing business and the entire technology division, including the Group's incipient digital transformation. Under his leadership, a new structure of entrepreneurially agile profit centres was created for the company in the 1990s, which was a prerequisite for the rapid growth of the Group's digital dimension from the turn of the millennium.
In 1999, Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen became a member of the Group Executive Board; in 2010, he took on the role of Chairman of the Executive Board. In 2022, he transitioned from this responsibility to that of Chairman of the Board of Directors. Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen: “My goal was to ultimately build a stable bridge for this successful company to enter the next generation. I am happy that we have accomplished this together."
Dr. Hubert Burda is thankful for the many years of trusting collaboration with Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen and his instinct for the changes brought by digital transformation: “What I have always valued and admired about Paul-Bernhard Kallen is his clear, entrepreneurial vision. He has led and developed our family business responsibly. For that, I am very grateful to him.”
Olaf Koch (54) will succeed Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Hubert Burda Media Group on February 1, 2025. Olaf Koch was CEO of Metro AG in Düsseldorf from 2012 to 2020. He is currently a member of the Supervisory Board of Mercedes-Benz Group AG and a partner and co-founder of ZINTINUS GmbH, a venture capital fund that focuses on promoting start-ups in the field of sustainable and healthy innovation in the food sector.
Olaf Koch: "The decision to appoint me as the successor to Dr. Paul-Bernhard Kallen as Chairman of the Board of Directors, and the trust associated with this decision, is a great honour for me. The media sector is in a state of constant and intense change, driven particularly by rapid technological advancements and shifting customer preferences. The resulting opportunities for Hubert Burda Media are immense. I look forward to tackling these opportunities with determination in collaboration with my colleagues on the Board of Directors and the Executive Board of Hubert Burda Media."
Former Executive Board member Dr. Andreas Rittstieg (68), who has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2017, will take on the role of deputy to the future Chairman of the Board of Directors.
Dr. Ulrike Handel (53) is also appointed to the Board of Directors. She worked at Axel Springer for a total of twelve years, most recently as a member of the Executive Board responsible for the European media business and digital companies such as Idealo and Awin until the end of 2022. Previously, Dr. Ulrike Handel was CEO for the DACH region of the international agency Group Dentsu. Today, she is part of the Board of Directors of the listed Norwegian media and e-commerce Group Schibsted and of the Supervisory Board of the medical software company CompuGroup, among others.
