Swiss CEO Vranckx lands on Lufthansa’s Executive Board
Published: Friday, Feb 23rd 2024, 15:30
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The top manager at Swiss is leaving: after more than three years as Swiss CEO, Dieter Vranckx is moving to the Executive Board of the parent company Lufthansa. This means that another top Swiss manager has landed in Frankfurt.
And Swiss has to replace the entire management team within a few months. At the beginning of the year, Swiss Head of Commercial Tamur Goudarzi Pour was replaced by Heike Birlenbach. At Lufthansa, Goudarzi Pour was appointed Head of Customer Experience for the entire Group.
The next departure will be Head of Finance Markus Binkert at the end of May. After 19 years at Swiss, he is moving to the catering company SV Group, where he will become Group CEO.
And now Swiss CEO Dieter Vranckx is also moving to Frankfurt to take up new career heights as Commercial Director of the Lufthansa Group from July. He has been appointed to the Executive Board for "Global Markets and Commercial Management Hubs". The Customer Experience and Group Brand Management divisions, which previously belonged to a different department, will also report to this department.
Several Swiss bosses start at Lufthansa
The Group's most attractive subsidiary is thus continuing its tradition as a training ground for Lufthansa Group executives. It all started with Swiss CEO Christoph Franz, who joined the Lufthansa management team in 2009 and even succeeded the outgoing Lufthansa CEO Wolfgang Mayrhuber in January 2011.
His successor at the helm of Swiss was Harry Hohmeister, who also moved to the Executive Board of the parent company at the beginning of 2016. Vranckx is now taking Hohmeister's place in the Lufthansa Group as he reaches the customary age limit of 60. This closes the circle of former Swiss CEOs.
Former Swiss CFO Michael Niggemann also moved to Frankfurt four years ago, where he is now Head of Human Resources at Lufthansa. He is now also taking over the position of CFO there on an interim basis, as the former Lufthansa CFO Remco Steenbergen is moving on to another job. Steenbergen currently still sits on the Board of Directors of Swiss.
Radical cut in the Group Executive Board
For its part, the parent company is making radical changes at the top: Four out of six members of the Management Board are to leave in the coming months. In addition, the Management Board will be reduced by one position. Niggemann is the only one who will remain on the top management body alongside CEO Carsten Spohr.
This sounds like a mega crisis at Europe's highest-turnover airline group, but can ultimately be explained by economic circumstances and personal decisions. After all, the Crane Group is doing better than it has for a long time after overcoming the coronavirus crisis. High ticket prices and fully booked aircraft have led to Lufthansa CEO Spohr being able to present one of the highest profits in the company's history on March 7.
The Board of Directors, led by former Lufthansa CFO Karl-Ludwig Kley, has opted for a clear-cut approach to the restructuring of the Executive Board instead of saying goodbye to the four departing managers on a monthly basis.
©Keystone/SDA
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