Business News
Eckhard Südmersen resigns from arvato Executive Board
Tuesday 18. January 2011 - Due to differing views on the future strategic direction of arvato, Eckhard Südmersen (52), CEO of arvato services CEE and member of the executive board of arvato AG, has decided to leave the company. He resigns from all his positions within the Group with immediate effect in order to take up new business challenges outside arvato.
“On behalf of the Executive Board I’d like to thank Eckhard Südmersen very much for his commitment and dedication over the past nearly four years, both to arvato AG and to his area of responsibility, arvato services CEE,” says CEO arvato Rolf Buch (45). “He has further advanced the expansion of the service portfolio and successfully opened up new sectors for arvato. My fellow executive board members and I wish him all the best, both in his future career and personally.”
After earning a degree in economics, Eckhard Südmersen began his professional career in 1986 at Möller Werke in Bielefeld. In 1991 Südmersen joined Bertelsmann Distribution as senior department head of business administration. Two years later he was appointed managing director of eps (electronic printing service GmbH), and in 1995 he became managing director of VVA (Vereinigte Verlagsauslieferung). He went on to hold further positions within Bertelsmann AG, including at the helm of Falk Verlag AG in Munich and as managing director of Bertelsmann Online, where he headed the international purchasing, logistics, customer and financial services departments and was responsible for the business in Germany. In 2002 Südmersen left to join the self-service department store group Kaufland, where he sat on the management board. In July 2007 he came back to Bertelsmann as a member of the executive board of arvato and took over as CEO of arvato services CEE.
The executive board of arvato AG consists of Rolf Buch (arvato AG Executive Board Chairman and a Member of the Bertelsmann Executive Board), Dr. Ulrich Cordes (Chief Financial Officer), Hans-Peter Hülskötter (arvato digital services), Hervé Milcent (arvato services Southern Europe) and Markus Schmedtmann (arvato print CEE).