Sanktjohanser New HDE President
Cologne, 03.11.06
Delegates of the Hauptverband des Deutschen Einzelhandels (HDE - Main Association of German Retailers) elect 56-year-old member of REWE Group Management Board unanimously as new president
The delegates of the retailers organisation elected the 56-year-old unanimously to the office on Monday (October 30, 2006). He will take over from Hermann Franzen, who led the association for 16 years. Franzen was not a candidate for re-election. Sanktjohanser has been a HDE vice president since last year and a member of Cologne-based REWE Group's Management Board for two years. Sanktjohanser, who had many years of experience in mid-size retailing at his parents' retail company, has been in charge of the specialty store business - which covers DIY stores, home electronics and bulk customers/co-operations - and public affairs for this leading trading and travel company. Upon the suggestion of Sanktjohanser, the delegate assembly named Hermann Franzen (66) the honorary president.
Aside from Josef Sanktjohanser, the retailer parliament also elected the other members to the HDE management board, made up of the president and nine vice presidents: Newly elected were Alfons Frenk (56, previously co-opted member), CEO of Edeka, Hamburg, and Zygmunt Mierdorf (54), member of the management board for Metro, Düsseldorf. At the recommendation of the trading association BAG, a corporate member of HDE, two of its members were elected to the HDE management board: Prof. Dr. Helmut Merkel (57), management board member of KarstadtQuelle, Essen, and president of the BAG trading association along with Jürgen Schulte-Laggenbeck (41), management board member in charge of finance for Otto Group, Hamburg. The delegates also elected Friedrich C. Conzen (60), proprietor of F.G. Conzen GmbH, Düsseldorf, and president of the North-Rhine-Westphalia retailers association and Horst Lenk (66), proprietor of Mode Lenk GmbH, Pforzheim, and vice presdient of the Baden-Württemberg retailers association as new members to the HDE management board. Re-elected were Bernd Kippig (53), proprietor of the retail company Juwelier Roller, Chemnitz, and president of the Saxony traders association, and Klaus Magnus (66) proprietor of the fashion company Karl Magnus KG, Alfeld, and president of the federal association of German clothing retailers. Erich Vorwohlt (71, previously co-opted member) proprietor of the clothing company Rübsamen GmbH & Co. KG, Augsburg, and president of the Bavarian retailers association was newly elected.
Retail associations close ranks
The HDE delegates assembly also agreed to the corporate membership of the trading association BAG into the HDE organisation. The HDE bylaws were amended appropriately to create the legal conditions for admitting BAG. Two of the representatives nominated by BAG were newly elected by the delegate assembly and are now represented on the HDE management board expanded to ten members. This formalises BAG's membership in HDE.
"This is the first step towards creating a common German retailers association at the federal level," said HDE General Manager Holger Wenzel. "Until this act is completed at the latest by 2011, BAG's corporate membership in HDE will help retailers speak with a single voice when representing their interests before policy-makers, administrative authorities, associations, and third-parties in Germany and at the European Union in Brussels more forcefully and effectively than ever before."
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