Change of leadership
Back chairs at the post office: long-time boss Appel is leaving in 2023
Tobias Meyer is currently the Group Board Member for Post and Parcel Germany. Photo: Patrick Pleul / dpa-Zentralbild / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
The global Post Group has long been on a profitable road to success. For group boss Frank Appel, however, the farewell is now initiated.
Deutsche Post gets a new boss. The previous chairman of the board, Frank Appel, is to be replaced in May 2023 by the previous Post & Parcel Germany boss Tobias Meyer, as the Bonn-based Dax company announced on Wednesday after a meeting of the supervisory board. As reported from informed circles, the 60-year-old Appel is aiming for the chairmanship of the supervisory board at Deutsche Telekom, which he could get in the spring of next year. “Handelsblatt” and “Manager Magazin” had previously reported on Appel’s telecom plans.
Appel came to the post of post at the post in 2008, hardly any other CEO of a Dax group has been in office for that long – only Joachim Kreuzburg from the laboratory equipment supplier Sartorius has been the company’s boss since 2003. Under Appel’s direction, the group grew strongly. Most recently, the company raised its profit forecast several times in a row. The boom in online retail and, most recently, the consequences of the corona pandemic resulted in a sharp increase in demand for parcels. Although the mail business is shrinking due to digitization, it is also profitable.
Meyer has been with Swiss Post since 2013
Appel’s designated successor Meyer has been with the group since 2013, before that he was with McKinsey for twelve years – Appel, who was still CEO, was also at this management consultancy before his post-post career. The supervisory board chairman of the Post, Nikolaus von Bomhard, called the designated chairman of the board Meyer a “proven expert on the group”. “He is the ideal person to successfully continue the course we have chosen.”
Originally, Appel’s contract ran until autumn 2022. Now this contract will be extended by six months, until the general meeting in May 2023. Then Appel will hand over the baton to Meyer. “After careful consideration, I decided not to make myself available for another full term,” said Appel. With Meyer, “a top manager and great colleague” takes over: “I couldn’t imagine a better successor.”
Meyer will hand over his current role as Board Member for Post & Parcel Germany in July 2022 to Nikola Hagleitner, who has previously been Head of Sales for this division. Meyer von Appel then takes over the group’s “Global Business Services”, which includes IT, among other things, in order to take a seat in the executive chair in Bonn’s Post Tower the following spring.
Deutsche Post DHL has around 570,000 employees worldwide, 200,000 of whom work in the Post & Parcel Germany division. In addition to the delivery of letters and parcels, there are also corporate divisions for freight, express deliveries and supply chains.