Anke Schäferkordt has decided to focus on leading Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland. She will be replaced by Bert Habets as the new Co-CEO of RTL Group alongside Guillaume de Posch.
Anke Schäferkordt, currently Co-CEO of RTL Group, will leave the Group’s board of directors and executive committee at her own request. She will continue to be the CEO of the Group’s largest business unit, Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland, which she has led since September 2005.
According to an industry observer familiar with the developments at RTL Group, Schäferkordt’s surprising decision to leave her post could be that she is gearing up to become the new CEO of RTL Group’s parent company Bertelsmann.
Bert Habets, currently CEO of RTL Nederland, will become the new co-CEO of RTL Group and will join the Group’s Executive Committee, alongside Co-CEO Guillaume de Posch and CFO Elmar Heggen. Bert Habets is also expected to join the RTL Group board of directors as executive director on April 19, 2017, and will remain CEO of RTL Nederland for the time being. RTL Group expects to announce a new CEO of RTL Nederland before the end of 2017.
“On behalf of the whole Board, I would like to thank Anke Schäferkordt for her outstanding entrepreneurial performance at the head of RTL Group. Together with her colleagues on the Executive Committee, she has succeeded in making RTL Group more digital, more international and faster growing. At the same time, she and her management team in Germany have continued the success story of Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland. While I regret her decision, I fully respect her reasons and I’m very happy that she will continue to lead and advance our largest business unit – and that she will continue to contribute her unique experience and expertise to the digital transformation of our Group,” said Thomas Rabe, Chairman of the RTL Group Board of Directors.
“To a large extent, RTL Group’s long lasting success is based on the quality, continuity and experience of its management team. I am delighted that we have found, in Bert Habets, a strong leader and digitally savvy media entrepreneur from within the Group as new Co-CEO of RTL Group. Since Bert Habets joined our Group in 1999, he has proven his outstanding leadership and creative skills. He transformed RTL Nederland from a traditional broadcaster into a media company which entertains its audience across all digital platforms. Bert Habets embodies RTL Group’s total video strategy. I look forward to working with him, and wish him every success in his new position.”
