Succession now in place

Jürgen Höfling (Foto: Manfred Esser) / Jürgen Höfling (Photo: Manfred Esser)

Jürgen Höfling has been appointed new Chairman of the Management Board at CWS-boco Group, effective 1 June. He succeeds Thomas Schmidt, the incoming Chairman of the Management Board of Franz Haniel & Cie. GmbH, who is making a permanent move to the Holding Company where he will replace Stephan Gemkow from 1 July.

Jürgen Höfling (56) brings a wealth of experience in the hygiene and services sector to the CEO role at CWS-boco Group. A business administration graduate, he began his career in 1989 as a Marketing and Key Account Manager at Werner + Mertz, a German SME operating well-known consumer brands such as Erdal and Frosch. In 1995 he moved to Deutsche Post AG, where he held various management positions until 2009, most recently as CEO DHL Global Mail from 2007 to 2009. He left DHL in 2009 to form his own consultancy specialising in restructuring, at which time he was also a partner at Theron Management Advisors. In 2014 he was named Managing Director Europe at Rentokil Initial and responsible for operations in 14 countries. In 2017 he was appointed to represent Rentokil Initial on the Shareholder Committee of the joint venture during the integration of CWS-boco and Initial. He is also a non-executive director on the Supervisory Board of Geopost.

“I'm convinced that Jürgen Höfling is the right choice for CEO to further the success of CWS-boco Group. As well as knowing the segment inside and out, his role on the Shareholder Committee included overseeing key steps in the process of the integration of CWS-boco and Initial”, explains Thomas Schmidt.

Höfling will take over from current CEO Thomas Schmidt, who has served as CEO of CWS-boco Group and a member of the Haniel Management Board since February 2017 and is set to succeed Stephan Gemkow as Chairman of the Management Board of the Haniel Holding Company on 1 July 2019.