Jungfrau Railway appoints Oliver Hammel as new CEO
Published: Thursday, Aug 29th 2024, 18:30
Updated At: Thursday, Aug 29th 2024, 19:20
Zurück zu Live Feed
The Jungfrau Railway has found a successor to its longstanding CEO Urs Kessler. The designated CEO Oliver Hammel is thus following in big footsteps and taking over a company that recently set new records.
The 41-year-old from Basel will succeed Kessler in June 2025, as Jungfrau Railway announced on Thursday evening. The long-standing company boss announced his resignation a year ago and will retire after the handover.
"I am delighted that in Oliver Hammel we have been able to recruit a young, dynamic and internationally experienced personality for this role," said Heinz Karrer, Chairman of the Jungfrau Railway Board of Directors, in the press release.
Hammel currently lives in Thailand with his wife and 9-year-old daughter and heads up the technology division for the Thai, Laos, Cambodian and Myanmar markets at Swiss sales specialist DKSH. Previously, he was head of the technology division for the Chinese market, based in Shanghai. Prior to that, he worked for the Swiss company Erowa in China.
The designated boss and his family are now returning to their home country for the new role after working abroad for over ten years. "I will bring an outside perspective to this well-established company," says Hammel according to the press release.
Workforce doubled under Kessler
The retiring Kessler has been with the Jungfrau Railway for 37 years. After 15 years as Managing Director, the time was ripe for a change at the top, he announced a year ago.
He can look back on several milestones in his career. These include the V-Cableway, which opened at the end of 2020, as he recently emphasized.
According to the CEO, he initiated the "generation project" and implemented it "with a lot of passion". "This was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity - as the head of a company, you can only realize a project like the V-Cableway once."
He described the development of the Asian market as another milestone in his work for the Group. "When I started at the company, we had Japanese guests, but we were nowhere else. Today, we are the market leader in all Asian markets," he said.
The development of Jungfrau Railways during his era can also be illustrated by the number of employees: This doubled to 1000 employees before the pandemic.
Corona as the biggest challenge
Meanwhile, the biggest test of his career was the coronavirus crisis. "It was an even bigger challenge for me than the V-Cableway," said Kessler.
His resignation did not come as a complete surprise a year ago: "My goal was to open the V-Cableway and make the company debt-free. Part of the script would have been for me to step down in 2022," says the CEO. During the pandemic, however, he wanted to lead the company through the crisis.
Last year, the Jungfrau Railway achieved the highest turnover and profit in its 112-year history. However, the previous guest record on the Jungfraujoch from 2018 has not yet been broken.
©Keystone/SDA
German 
English 
French 
Spanish 
Arabic