The expert in corporate communications studied regional studies, political science, law and journalism.
(Photo: Volkswagen AG)
Dusseldorf A high-profile automobile manager is taking over the communications of Deutsche Bahn: As the state-owned company announced in Berlin on Wednesday, Nicole Mommsen will in future be in charge of press and public relations work for the DB Group. The board of directors confirmed the personnel at a meeting on Tuesday. When exactly the 48-year-old will succeed Oliver Schumacher is still unclear, the railway said on request.
Mommsen currently works as a communications manager in the Wolfsburg Volkswagen Group. There, however, it has been sidelined since CEO Oliver Blume took office last September, say industry experts. Blume, who is also the head of Porsche, brought his head of communications, Sebastian Rudolph, from Stuttgart to the headquarters in Wolfsburg in late summer.
Nicole Mommsen, who headed Volkswagen’s global communications until the departure of VW CEO Herbert Diess, initially became Deputy Head of VW Group Communications. In the spring, she then switched to the newly created position of “Communication and Sustainability Volkswagen Group Technology”, which many saw as a relegation. “Former Diess confidants are no longer really happy in Wolfsburg,” added VW circles.
Mommsen is considered reliable and competent. After studying humanities and social sciences as well as journalism in Bonn and Chicago, she began her career in 2000 at Bloomberg News, from where she moved to Deutsche Post DHL in 2007 to work in financial communications. She then held senior positions at the strategic communications consultancy Brunswick Group, the science and technology company Merck and the investment bank Goldman Sachs.
“With Nicole Mommsen, we are gaining one of the most experienced corporate communicators in Germany,” commented Bahn boss Richard Lutz on the new addition. “Nicole Mommsen will help us to master the numerous opportunities and challenges of DB in the coming years.”
Recruiting as Mommsen’s potential main task
According to Deutsche Bahn, the departure of long-time DB communications chief Oliver Schumacher had been planned for a long time. According to the press office, he will retire at the end of July in the passive phase of semi-retirement. The 62-year-old economist joined DB in 2006 and has since been responsible for communications for three CEOs and the Supervisory Board. In 2015 he also took over the management of marketing.
A whole mountain of challenges awaits Mommsen in Berlin – even if the tariff conflict with the EVG railway company should at least have been clarified by the time she takes office. Countless construction sites and technical problems have been causing a chaos of delays on Germany’s rails for a long time, which will last until at least 2027 due to extensive repair work on the route network.
In addition, the railway lacks tens of thousands of employees, which should make new personnel campaigns one of Mommsen’s future main tasks. Added to this is the discussion about a possible sale of the freight forwarding subsidiary DB Schenker and a spin-off of the rail infrastructure from the DB Group.
More: Deutsche Bahn boss Richard Lutz expects an operating loss of billions in 2023 and wants to “change course”