REWE Group Management Board Is Now Complete
Cologne, 12.01.09
Management structures in Germany and internationally expanded
The leadership team at Cologne-based REWE Group is now complete. In future, Armin Rehberg and Frank Wiemer will head their respective Management Board departments of "Discount National and International" and "Logistics, Real Estate Properties and IT".
Moreover, the previous Director of the National Full-range Stores Strategic Business Unit (SBU), Jan Kunath, will serve as REWE Group's General Agent and as a member of the Supervisory Board of transGourmet Holding, where he will assume responsibility for the strategic orientation of transGourmet with its dual Cash-and-Carry and Food-Service sales concepts within the Management Board portfolio of Josef Sanktjohanser; his reassignment is to take effect on 1 May 2009.
Jan Kunath will simultaneously assume responsibility for the future development of the toom BauMarkt and ProMarkt specialist stores within the Management Board portfolio of Josef Sanktjohanser.
Jan Kunath will be succeeded by Lionel Souque on 1 May 2009, as the new Director of the National Full-range Stores SBU and as a General Agent for REWE Group. Souque has been in charge of expanding and directing the entire full-range business in Italy, Central Europe and Eastern Europe as a member of the REWE Austria AG Management Board since April of 2007.
As Lionel Souque departs, Janusz Kulik will take charge of the management of the International Full-range Stores SBU as of 1 April 2009, when he will also join the Management Board of REWE International AG. He will assume responsibility for the full-range store business in Central and Eastern Europe.
"REWE Group is bolstering its efficiency in Germany and abroad, and it is doing so by persistently directing its orientation towards new growth opportunities, completing the Management Board, assigning the members new portfolios, simplifying its organisational structures and modifying key management roles", said Alain Caparros, CEO of Cologne-based REWE Group.
Armin Rehberg's Management Board Portfolio
Effective 1 January 2009, Armin Rehberg has assumed his duties as a REWE Group Management Board Member in charge of National and International Discount Stores. In Armin Rehberg, one of the best discount store experts will head the second-strongest sales line at REWE Group and continue its expansion. Senior managers Claus Dieter Ziemann (National Discount Director), Günter Becker (Director of Discount Central Services and of International Discount Stores for Italy, Austria, the Czech Republic and Romania), Jens Dunkel (Purchasing) and Folker Gussek (Director of International Discount Stores for Bulgaria and Hungary) will all continue to report to Armin Rehberg as members of the senior management.
Janusz Kulik, who successfully served as interim manager of the National and International Discount Store SBU until its inclusion in the general portfolio of Armin Rehberg, will depart as planned from the management of the SBU; he will assume a management role in the International Full-range Store segment.
Frank Wiemer's Management Board Portfolio
Frank Wiemer started in his post as a REWE Group Management Board Member on 1 January 2009. His portfolio includes the departments of Logistics, Information Technology and Real Estate Property Management.
The field of logistics was completely reorganised and newly positioned in the framework of REWE's structural reforms.
Operative logistics in future is to be placed entirely within the responsibility of the different SBUs. Responsibility for this task as well as the considerable expansion of the logistical infrastructure and the implementation of the associated new logistical strategy will continue to be under the leadership of Erich König as General Agent of REWE Group.
Jens Siebenhaar will join the company on 1 March 2009, as the Director of Information Technology. Jens Siebenhaar will take on Group-wide holding functions for the IT Department and, together with Rolf Rosbach, assume operative responsibility for IT systems as the chairman of the senior management of REWE-Informations-Systeme GmbH (RIS). Thomas Kahlmann will begin his work as the Director of Group Logistics on 1 February 2009. Amongst his duties will be not only pure holding responsibilities but also operative responsibility for the national warehouses, procurement logistics and export and import platforms.
Josef Sanktjohanser's Management Board Portfolio
Jan Kunath assumes responsibility for B2B and Specialist Stores
The formation of the transGourmet Holding joint venture in conjunction with Coop Switzerland created Europe's second-largest B2B trading company, with a turnover of more than 6.5 billion euros. Coop Switzerland and REWE Group are determined to exploit consistently the enormous growth opportunities for B2B business – above all in Eastern Europe – while permanently strengthening the business's profitability in the German, Swiss and French domestic markets. For REWE, the previous Director of the National Full-range Stores SBU, Jan Kunath, on 1 May 2009, will become General Agent of REWE Group and a member of the Board of Directors of transGourmet Holding, where he will be responsible for the strategic orientation of transGourmet and its two sales concepts of Cash-and-Carry and Food Services in the portfolio of Management Board Member Josef Sanktjohanser.
At the same time, Jan Kunath will also assume responsibility within Josef Sanktjohanser's portfolio for the continuing development of REWE Group's Specialist Stores. The senior management of toom BauMarkt and ProMarkt will report directly to Jan Kunath from this time. Thanks to his sales know-how, Kunath will make a substantial contribution to consolidating and continuing the growth of these key business fields with their impressive high-yield potential.
"In Jan Kunath, we have managed to attract an excellent trade manager for these challenging tasks", said Alain Caparros. "Kunath possesses many years of successful international trading experience in the key growth markets for transGourmet, including his service as a Management Board Member of EUROBILLA in Eastern Europe, CEO of Bon Appetit in Switzerland, Management Board Member of REWE Group Austria and most recently as the Director of the National Full-range Stores SBU."
Alain Caparros's Management Board Portfolio
Lionel Souque assumes management of the National Full-range Store SBU
On 1 May 2009, Lionel Souque will succeed Jan Kunath as the new Director of the National Full-range Stores SBU and as General Agent of REWE Group. Souque began his professional career in 1992 at Auchan in the USA before joining REWE Group in 1996. After serving in various leadership positions in the Penny International operations, Souque assumed management of Purchasing/Marketing at Eurobilla. In 2002, he joined the senior management of Full-range Stores in Italy and advanced to the CEO post in 2005. Since April of 2007, Souque has served as a Member of the Management Board of REWE Austria AG where he has overseen the expansion and direction of the entire full-range business in Italy and Central and Eastern Europe.
"Lionel Souque will persist in following the course of expansion, brand image enhancement and profit orientation for REWE supermarkets in Germany that was quite successfully begun by Jan Kunath and his management team – and Mr. Souque will also continue to pay close attention to the specific challenges facing our independent REWE retailers", said Alain Caparros.
Key Account Management (KAM) will be integrated into the National Full-range Store SBU under the direction of Dr. Küssner.
The process of integrating Key Account Management (KAM) into the National Full-range Stores SBU to be carried out on 1 February 2009, will provide efficiency improvements, but above all help to achieve the necessary reductions in complexity. The direction of the KAM business unit will be assumed by Dr. Martin Küssner, who will simultaneously be appointed to the senior management of National Full-range Stores. The integration of the KAM business into the National Full-range Stores SBU will simplify the required co-ordination processes in the area of merchandising and create the conditions for a smoother interaction of the business units.
REWE Austria AG will become REWE International AG
The SBUs of Full-range Stores for Austria, Italy and Eastern Europe will be combined to create a single International Full-range Store SBU under the direction of Frank Hensel. Janusz Kulik and Franz Nebel along with Werner Wutscher will complete the Management Board of REWE International AG.
In the spirit of structural efficiency improvements, the entire full-range business of REWE Group outside Germany will in future be operated under the umbrella of the "International Full-range Store" SBU. The previously independent organisational structure of Eurobilla AG for markets outside Austria will be dismantled. Central services necessary to support sales will be performed by the existing service departments of REWE International AG with its future international responsibilities. In this context, the following changes will result to the existing management structures:
Direction of the newly restructured International Full-range Store SBU will be under Frank Hensel as the CEO of REWE International AG. Frank Hensel will be named General Agent for REWE Group on 1 May 2009. He will also assume responsibility for the full-range business in Italy and for the auditing duties previously under the Management Board portfolio of Werner Wutscher in addition to Mr. Hensel's prior duties.
With the departure of Lionel Souque from the position, Janusz Kulik will be appointed to the senior management of the International Full-range Store SBU and also to the Management Board of REWE International AG on 1 April 2009. He will assume responsibility for the full-range business in Central and Eastern Europe, whereas responsibility for the IKI supermarkets – the joint venture of REWE Group and its COOPERNIC partners in the Baltic region – will continue to lie with Lionel Souque as Chairman of the Board of Directors of IKI.
Kulik began his career at REWE Group after his prior posts at Metro C+C, Carrefour in Poland and, in 2002, as CEO of miniMAL Poland and later also of Billa Russia. In 2007, he was put in charge of the National and International Discount business on an interim basis due to a necessary short-notice change in management; he successfully carried out his duties at that post until it was assumed by the new Management Board Member for Discount Stores, Armin Rehberg, in January of 2009.
The future international orientation of all central departments within the "International Full-range Store" SBU requires an even greater specialisation and a strengthening of the respective core competencies. In order to ensure this is achieved within a complex organisation with responsibility for operations in ten different countries, Franz Nebel will - with effect from 1 April 2009 - be appointed to the senior management of the International Full-Range Store SBU and to the Management Board of REWE International AG, where he will be in charge of the departments of Finance, Accounting, Controlling and Mergers and Acquisitions.
As a Management Board Member of REWE International AG, Werner Wutscher will assume responsibility within the senior management of the "International Full-range Store" SBU for the departments IT, Logistics, Human Resources/HR Development, Public Affairs/Sustainability, Real Estate Property/Expansion in Austria and the private-label organic brand Ja! Natürlich along with the Wegenstein vintner operations, among other duties.
Volker Dürschlag will be the new Compliance Officer at REWE Group.
On 1 February the Director of the Central Department of Legal Affairs, Volker Dürschlag, will be appointed to serve as the new REWE Group Compliance Officer. This move to the role successfully built up and introduced by Reinhard Schürk, who served as the previous Compliance Officer, takes into account the intensive legal implications for the area of Compliance Management.
Contact
REWE GROUP-Corporate Communications
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E-Mail: presse(at)rewe-group.com
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