Beaujean chairs ProSiebenSat.1 as Conze exits
March 27, 2020
ProSiebenSat.1 Media says it is reorganising its Executive Board to more effectively focus on entertainment. Chief Financial Officer Rainer Beaujean (pictured) has additionally assumed the office of Chairman of the Executive Board. Chief Executive Officer Max Conze is leaving the Company with immediate effect.
New appointees to the Executive Board are Wolfgang Link and Christine Scheffler. Link heads the Entertainment segment and Scheffler continues to be in charge of Human Resources.
Accompanying the reshuffle of the Executive Board is a change in relation to the strategic focus. ProSiebenSat.1 Group is returning the primary focus of its operating business to the entertainment sector in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland). Here, the main emphasis is on local and live formats, also in close cooperation with Red Arrow Studios and Studio71. The Group’s digital reach is to be further extended, including via the streaming platform Joyn. NuCom remains an important pillar of the Group in synergistic terms. Existing investments that benefit from advertising on the entertainment platforms will continue to be developed to generate value and sold in due course under an active portfolio policy.
Dr. Werner Brandt, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE: “The Supervisory Board would like to thank Max Conze for his service. He has navigated the Company through a difficult period with resolution and determination. I have full confidence in the new Executive Board team. In Rainer Beaujean, a manager with analytical and implementation prowess, is assuming the chairmanship of the Executive Board. His 20 years of board experience will be of great benefit to the Company, particularly at this critical time. In Wolfgang Link and Christine Scheffler, we have also two highly capable new appointees on the Executive Board whose portfolios are key to the future success of ProSiebenSat.1.”
Beaujean commented: “This Company has far greater potential than is currently credited to it from outside. Under the leadership of the new Executive Board team, we will now return to focusing more strongly on our core segment of entertainment and on sustainably profitable business. While the corona pandemic poses a huge challenge for us in the weeks and months ahead, I firmly believe that we will emerge from this crisis all the stronger and return to generating shareholder value.
Beaujean has been CFO of ProSiebenSat.1 Media SE since July 2019. He joined ProSiebenSat.1 from stock exchange-listed packaging manufacturer Gerresheimer AG, where he was CFO and also Speaker of the Management Board from 2012. Prior to that, he was a member of the executive boards of the Elster Group, Demag Cranes and T-Online.
Link has been Co-CEO of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group’s Entertainment segment since last year. For more than six years prior to that, he was Chairman of the Management Board of ProSiebenSat.1 TV Deutschland and hence in charge of all of the Group’s German TV stations. He joined the Group in 2009 as entertainment director of SAT.1.
Scheffler has been Chief HR Officer of the ProSiebenSat.1 Group since early 2019. She previously occupied the same position for over two years at the French outsourcing company webhelp Group.