Press Release | Gütersloh, 11/30/2012

Achim Berg Appointed New CEO of Arvato AG

• Supervisory Board appoints Achim Berg to Bertelsmann Executive Board
• Berg will realign Arvato to reflect Bertelsmann’s new strategic guidelines
• Rolf Buch resigns executive positions by mutual agreement and on best of terms

Achim Berg (48) has been designated as the new CEO of Arvato AG and a member of the Bertelsmann Executive Board. The Supervisory Board of Bertelsmann Management SE today appointed Berg to the Executive Board of the international media and services company, with effect from April 1, 2013. He succeeds Rolf Buch (47), who will step down from the Arvato management and resign his seat on the Bertelsmann Executive Board, by mutual agreement and on the best of terms, at the end of the year. Rolf Buch and the shareholders have jointly arrived at the conclusion that the responsibility for Arvato’s upcoming stage of growth, for which Buch laid the foundations, should be reassigned.

Gunter Thielen, Chairman of the Bertelsmann Supervisory Board, comments: “In his more than twenty years at Bertelsmann and especially at the helm of Arvato, Rolf Buch has achieved a great deal for our company. I thank him for this and wish him all the best for the future. Among Rolf Buch’s remarkable and enduring achievements are the building of Arvato’s French business, which is one of the company’s most important mainstays to this day, the establishment of Infoscore, and the expansion of the group’s worldwide services business.” Thielen continued: “Achim Berg is the best possible choice for leading Arvato into a prosperous future and putting the company’s strategy into practice. He has a wealth of experience and top-notch networks in the IT and services segments that are so important for Arvato. Moreover, he is an excellent manager.“

Bertelsmann CEO Thomas Rabe welcomed Berg’s appointment to the Executive Board of the company, saying: “We look forward to Achim Berg’s international expertise and perspective. Above and beyond his profound understanding of technology, he brings with him extensive management know-how from a global group like Microsoft and other noted companies. He will further enhance our Executive Board team, and will resolutely align the Group’s growth engine Arvato to our four new strategic guidelines: beyond strengthening Arvato’s core business he will provide crucial impetus in the division’s digital transformation, advance the building of growth platforms within Arvato, and accelerate its expansion in our defined growth regions across the world.”

Rabe added: “Achim Berg will be able to build on the work done by Rolf Buch, whom I would like to sincerely thank at this point. He and I spent many good years together on the Bertelsmann Executive Board. Rolf Buch is one of the most successful entrepreneurs in our group. No other colleague has won the coveted Bertelsmann Entrepreneur Award, which we present in honor of the year’s best performances, more often than he did.”

Achim Berg has served as Corporate Vice President, Worldwide Operator Channels at Microsoft Inc. in Seattle, WA (USA) since 2011, having initially joined Microsoft in 2007 and overseen the company’s Germany business among other things. Prior to this, the Business IT graduate held executive positions at companies including the Telekom subsidiary T-Com and the computer manufacturers Dell and Fujitsu Siemens. Berg is regarded as both an eminent authority on the distribution and marketing of IT services, and a well-versed expert on information technology. He is married and has a 14-year-old son.

Rolf Buch is leaving Bertelsmann after more than 20 years. In 1991, he had joined what was then Bertelsmann Distribution GmbH as an assistant to the management. This was followed by successive managerial positions across what is now Arvato. He took a seat on the Arvato Executive Board in 2002, and was appointed its Chairman in January 2008. Since then, he has successfully repositioned Arvato with a clear-cut growth strategy.

As a global service provider, Arvato supports B2B customers around the world in optimizing their customer relationships. Its more than 68,000 employees develop and deliver bespoke solutions for business processes across integrated service chains. Arvato AG is a wholly owned subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In 2011, it generated revenues of €5.4 billion and its operating EBIT was €341 million.

About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is an international media company whose core divisions encompass television (RTL Group), book publishing (Random House), magazine publishing (Gruner + Jahr), services (Arvato), and printing (Be Printers) in some 50 countries. In 2011, the company’s businesses, with their more than 100,000 employees, generated revenues of €15.3 billion. Bertelsmann stands for a combination of creativity and entrepreneurship that empowers the creation of first-rate media, communications, and service offerings to inspire people around the world and to provide innovative solutions for customers.