The ex-McKinsey director is to move into the supervisory board at the general meeting of Deutsche Post.
(Photo: imago images/Metodi Popow)
Dusseldorf The former McKinsey director and state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense, Katrin Suder, is to control Deutsche Post in the future. This emerges from an invitation from the Bonn-based Dax group to the general meeting on May 4th.
The now self-employed management consultant will contribute her skills in logistics, digitization and cyber security. The announcement also mentions “international experience” and “corporate management/control”.
After the election, the neuroscientist, who has a doctorate, would succeed Katja Windt, managing director of the industrial group SMS, on the control committee. The Bremen honorary professor may not be nominated again after twelve years in office.
Suder has been in the headlines several times in the past: At the beginning of 2020, she had to face a parliamentary committee of inquiry in the so-called consultant affair about the award of highly endowed contracts in the Federal Ministry of Defense.
The allegations that Suder had not complied with the applicable award criteria in order to favor contractors were investigated there. Among them were personal acquaintances and companies such as Accenture or McKinsey. Allegations against Minister Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) herself were also made.
At the time, Suder rejected the allegations and partly referred to gaps in memory. She was never involved in the awards, she explained. In the end, no misconduct could be proven, but representatives of the FDP, Greens and Left Party declared in a dissenting opinion: “They did not keep the required distance from former companions.”
VW supervisory board stopped appointment of Katrin Suder to the board
Immediately afterwards, Suder was appointed chair of the Federal Government’s Digital Council. In May 2021, however, she was surprisingly denied an appointment to the board of the Volkswagen Group, where she was supposed to be responsible for the IT department, by the supervisory board of the car manufacturer.
Her past at McKinsey is said to have aroused the suspicions of employee representatives, who traditionally associate the name of the consulting firm with savings and job cuts, according to corporate circles at the time. In addition, there was speculation about concerns in the supervisory board about Suder’s work in the Ministry of Defense. They were allegedly worried about a political aftershock from the consultant affair, which could then also have affected Volkswagen.
Suder’s planned appointment to the Post supervisory board is met with astonishment from shareholders’ advocates. “One wonders why the Bonn-based group is burdened with personnel that was already controversial elsewhere,” says Marc Tüngler, general manager of the German Association for the Protection of Securities (DSW).
Suder himself has so far left a written inquiry from the Handelsblatt unanswered.
After the wage agreement in March, the warning strikes came to an end quickly.
(Photo: dpa)
Since leaving the Ministry of Defense, the native of Hamburg has worked as a freelance consultant, holding supervisory board mandates in companies such as the listed real estate group LEG or the IT security company Cloudflare. The supervisory board position at Deutsche Post could bring her an additional annual income of 75,000 euros.
Together with the former national soccer goalkeeper and ex-HSV manager Katja Kraus, to whom Suder has been married since 2017, the 52-year-old also runs the company TAE Advisory & Sparring. According to its own statements, the Hamburg consultancy supports “women with responsibility in recognizing, fulfilling and further increasing their effectiveness”.
With her past at McKinsey, Suder would not be alone in the management team at Deutsche Post. Former CEO Klaus Zumwinkel and the now outgoing CEO Frank Appel were once consultants there. Appel’s designated successor, Tobias Meyer, also comes along, as does CFO Melanie Kreis.
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