New Management Board for RTL Deutschland
Thomas Rabe takes over as Chairman of the Management Board of RTL Deutschland. Co-CEO Stephan Schäfer to step down from the Management Board of RTL Deutschland and to leave the Bertelsmann GMC on the best of terms. Andreas Fischer named Chief Operating Officer (COO) of RTL Deutschland.
RTL Group is reorganising the Management Board of RTL Deutschland. Matthias Dang (Co-CEO), Alexander Glatz (CFO), and Oliver Radtke, who is responsible for the overall coordination of the combination of RTL Deutschland and Gruner + Jahr (G+J), will manage RTL Deutschland, along with Andreas Fischer. Fischer, Executive Vice President (EVP) Business Development at RTL Group, joins the Management Board as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Thomas Rabe, CEO of Bertelsmann and RTL Group, takes over as Chairman of the Management Board of RTL Deutschland. Stephan Schäfer, previously Co-CEO of RTL Deutschland, is stepping down from the Management Board on the best of terms, and is leaving the company. He will remain associated with RTL in an advisory capacity.
Thomas Rabe says: “I look forward to working even more closely with my colleagues at RTL Deutschland in the future. There are exciting tasks and great challenges ahead of us, which we will tackle together. I would like to thank Stephan Schäfer for his dedication to Gruner + Jahr and RTL Deutschland. He provided a lot of impetus at both companies, including the combination of RTL Deutschland and G+J, the repositioning of the RTL brand, and the further development of RTL’s programming. I am pleased that he will continue to support us in an advisory capacity.”
Thomas Rabe, Chairman of the Bertelsmann Executive Board since 2012 and additionally CEO of RTL Group since 2019, continues: “We have defined clear priorities for the months ahead: We will actively manage the business in an increasingly challenging environment, further strengthen the management team, continue to expand the streaming service RTL+, and complete the combination of RTL Deutschland and G+J.”
Stephan Schäfer said: “I would like to thank Thomas Rabe for his trust, and our teams in Cologne and Hamburg for their support over the past years, during which we have achieved a great deal together for G+J, RTL, and Bertelsmann. As a unified company, RTL Deutschland and G+J are in a good position to become a national media champion in Germany. I look forward to accompanying them on this path in an advisory capacity.”
With his departure from the Executive Board of RTL Deutschland, Stephan Schäfer is also leaving Bertelsmann’s Group Management Committee (GMC). Upon his appointment as CEO of Gruner + Jahr in April 2021, Schäfer had become a member of the committee, which reports directly to the Bertelsmann Executive Board and advises and supports it on matters of Group strategy and development. As a result, the GMC will from now on comprise 20 senior executives of eight different nationalities.
Stephan Schäfer, joined Gruner + Jahr in 2009 as Editor-in-Chief and Publishing Director. He took over the post of Chief Product Officer on the Executive Board in 2013. In February 2019, in addition to his duties at G+J, he was appointed Managing Director Content & Brands at RTL Deutschland. In this role, Schäfer was responsible for RTL Deutschland’s broadcaster portfolio, audio offerings, marketing, production management and program purchasing. He was appointed CEO of Gruner + Jahr in April 2021, and Co-CEO of RTL Deutschland in September of the same year.
Andreas Fischer, the new COO of RTL Deutschland and EVP Business Development at RTL Group since 2020, started his career at RTL in 2000. He worked in various functions before joining RTL Group’s Strategy & Controlling department in 2010, where he became Vice President Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) in 2011. In 2013, he took over the management and coordination of RTL Group’s Synergy Committees. Since 2015, he has taken over various leadership positions in the areas of Business Development, Operations Management and M&A.
