CH Media makes organizational and personnel changes
As part of the "CH Media 2025" strategy, CH Media is making organizational and personnel adjustments that will be completed by October 2020. In addition to the Publishing and Entertainment units, the new Chief Operating Officer unit will be created as of April 1.
With the "CH Media 2025" strategy, which was formulated in mid-2019, CH Media intends to focus on the areas of publishing and entertainment in the future. The strategy, which builds on the "Columbus" integration program, requires an adjustment of the organization, which will be completed in stages by October 2020.
In publishing, which currently accounts for around 45 percent of revenues with the editorial paid offers, the focus is primarily on digitization of the offers. The entertainment segment - which accounts for around 35 percent of revenues - is expected to offer new growth opportunities and the possibility of diversification in the medium term due to the continuing rise in demand.
In the course of this, the Operations, Technology & Integration area will be expanded and the role of Chief Operating Officer (COO) will be introduced as of April 1, for which Roland Kühne, previously Head of Operations, Technology & Integration, will be responsible. In addition, the central Digital Division (CDO) will be integrated into the Publishing, Entertainment and COO divisions.
Restructuring and personnel changes
As of the beginning of July 2020, 39-year-old Mathias Meier from Axel Springer will join the Publishing Executive Board as Chief Product Officer. As Head of Product Development Image he was with the Image-Zeitung has played a leading role in a large number of digital initiatives in recent years and brings additional expertise for the digitization of the offerings. Meier studied information technology and design at Lübeck University of Applied Sciences in Germany and spent around 16 years at the Image-Newspaper.
Meier will join the Executive Board of CH Media's Publishing division, together with Pascal Hollenstein, Head of Publishing, and Dietrich Berg, Head of Advertising Market and Scoreboard, as well as Jürg Weber (until September 30, 2020), Head of User Market.
For his part, 62-year-old Jürg Weber will step down from the Publishing Executive Board at the end of September. The deputy CEO is stepping down from the operational management of publishing and the corporate management of CH Media two years after the company was founded, and will take on the role of Senior Advisor to CH Media from October 2020. In this role, he will continue to represent the company in selected projects and mandates.
Weber joined the company in 1997 as managing director of Lucerne Newspaper joined the predecessor company of NZZ Regionalmedien, and from 2009 was responsible for the Media Central Switzerland division on the NZZ Executive Board. At the end of 2014, as Managing Director of NZZ Regionalmedien, he additionally assumed responsibility for the Tagblatt media in eastern Switzerland. Until the launch of the CH Media joint venture in October 2018, he represented NZZ Regionalmedien on the corporate management of the NZZ. At CH Media, Jürg Weber was responsible for the user market in the publishing sector, the trade and consumer magazine sector and book publishing.
His responsibilities in the User Market division will be taken over by Management Board member Dietrich Berg from fall 2020, in addition to the Advertising Market and Scoreboard divisions already managed by him. In future, Roland Kühne will be responsible for the magazines and book publishing.
Following the departures of Executive Board members Peter Neumann (as of April 30, 2020) and Jürg Weber (as of September 30, 2020), CH Media's Executive Board has seven members.
