Generation change at Burda – at least a little

Munich He never saw himself as a cool, calculating manager, but rather as an entrepreneur, “sometimes more rational, sometimes more emotional”. With this self-image, Paul-Bernhard Kallen, 64, made it twelve years ago to the central figure in the Munich media group of Hubert Burda, 81.

Now there is a generation change in the realm, which spans from magazines to internet start-ups – at least a little. At the beginning of next year, Kallen will hand over day-to-day business, and Martin Weiss, 54, who joined Burda in 2015, will become the new CEO.

This ends a rare accumulation of offices at the top of the company. The long-time CEO is now concentrating on the management of the Board of Directors that has already been entrusted to him, in which the shareholders are strongly represented. Here, Kallen, de facto the company’s top asset manager and wealth multiplier, is likely to continue to set the tone.

Kallen will presumably accompany his successor in management closely at the beginning. Newcomer Weiss looks, after the paper version at least, like a younger version of the head of the board of directors. Since 2017, the future CEO has been responsible for those activities on the Executive Board that should continue to provide strategic momentum at Burda: international affairs and the investment business, i.e. the purchase and sale of deserving and earning young digitization companies.

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Kallen praises the epigone Weiss, who also learned the trade at McKinsey at a young age, because also as an “experienced entrepreneur, strategist and investor” – a description that applies even better to himself.

Withdrawal in Russia, Ukraine and Turkey

In 1996, the son of an entrepreneurial family from Neuss, a well-known Catholic city, joined the “Bunte” and “Focus” group after the publisher Burda wanted to use the first wave of digitization too impetuously, for example with the costly “Europe Online” platform, which followed had to be set again in a short time.

He had always agreed with Paul-Bernhard Kallen that “we want to lead our family business boldly, with a lot of optimism and creative drive”, praised Hubert Burda on the occasion of the current personnel. He had been able to be certain “every day in the past few years that Kallen would make the right decisions in this sense and with entrepreneurial instinct”. The principal still has the majority of the votes; most of the shares have passed to his children Jacob and Elisabeth, who are also on the board of directors.

Kallen praises back that he came in 1996 because publisher Burda “was obsessed with the digital revolution and wanted to realign his company accordingly”. His courage to innovate, willingness to take risks and persistence in the event of setbacks were “great incentives” for him and made this development of the company possible.

In his twelve years as CEO, the group’s turnover grew from 1.6 billion to 2.9 billion euros, which is expected to be achieved in 2021 with a current growth rate of almost seven percent. At the beginning of his work, Kallen had even imagined an annual expansion of ten to 15 percent, but then geopolitics got in the way.

In Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, Burda had to make an orderly withdrawal. Today the group, which has developed from a publishing house to a multimedia company with integrated asset management, is active in Great Britain, France, Poland and the Czech Republic, with Scandinavia as a new target region. The core is complementary magazine business, as it is called at Burda – magazines with the largest possible internet presence.

Committed to promoting Europe’s digital sovereignty

The in-house company Burda Principal Investments (BPI) provided the necessary investment funds. Under the leadership of the designated CEO Weiss, she recently made more than 25 investments in Europe, the USA and Asia. They are part of the second-hand platform Vinted, the British e-commerce company Bloom & Wild and the Asian used car platform Carsome.

Martin Weiss

Kallen praises Weiss, who also learned the trade at McKinsey at a young age, as an “experienced entrepreneur, strategist and investor”.

(Photo: Burda)

The neighborhood platform Nebenan.de has meanwhile been integrated into the Burda Group. Kallen’s full art was shown in the case of the digital animal feed specialist Zooplus: The temporary investment increased the capital employed by a factor of 16. It was also easy to cope with industry-wide mockery about “dog years” at Burda.

Burda connoisseurs believe that Paul-Bernhard Kallen has been toying with the exit from day-to-day business for the past two years. The pandemic prevented that, and Weiss’s successor was probably not ready yet.

Now there will be a change in time for Kallen’s 65th birthday in February. Internally, many expect him to step up the pace on the board of directors. The committee should meet more often than before. The graduate economist shouldn’t be bored anyway: after all, he still runs his own holding company Acton, sits on the shareholders’ committee of the Knauf plastering company and looks after his family’s financial investments, which extend into the Werhahn dynasty.

And finally, it is to be expected that Kallen will remain very audible on the political stage with his warnings against the monopoly power of American internet giants such as Google and Facebook. He is a committed campaigner for the digital sovereignty of Europe and the market economy, which, to his grief, cannot always be said about politics.

Weiss: “The group is well positioned for the future”

With Kallen’s departure as CEO, further responsibilities on the board of directors change. Personnel director Katharina Herrmann, 46, is promoted to head of the newly created Human Resources and Compliance department. Andreas Rittstieg, 65, previously responsible for legal and compliance, like Kallen, is also withdrawing from his duties as a member of the board of directors. Philipp Welte, 59, remains responsible for publishing activities and is responsible for “National Media Brands”. The trained journalist, whom some from the outside already saw as Crown Prince, is said to have a good relationship with the new CEO Weiss.

In the long run, in addition to Kallen, Hubert Burda’s children will depend on how the company develops. Jacob Burda is evidently more and more interested in details, Elisabeth Furtwängler and her mother Maria, the well-known actress, are publicly fighting against discrimination against women in the media and entertainment business.

The new CEO Weiss got in closer contact with the Munich family company with Offenburg roots 20 years ago when he advised on the creation of the listed internet company Tomorrow Focus AG. Over time, this has become the company Holiday Check, which Burda now wants to get back from the stock exchange – apparently because they don’t want to make US competitors too smart about the balance sheet and their own far-reaching plans, which supposedly include offering their own package tours.

Weiss, who lived in London with his family until the summer, had set up his own business, the consulting firm Solon, which he sold. He then worked as strategic director of the telecommunications and media company Millicom. At Burda, among other things, he is head of the supervisory board of the subsidiary New Work SE, once known as Xing.

He got to know and appreciate Burda “as a fascinating, innovative and above all personable company”, explains future CEO Weiss: “The group is well positioned for the future.”

More: Burda helped the federal government with the procurement of masks in the early Corona phase

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