Karen Heidl heads AZ Medien magazine publishing house

 Karen Heidl will take over as Head of Magazine Publishing at AZ Medien from May 1. She succeeds Irene Frei, who is leaving the company at her own request at the end of April to return to self-employment (see ). The magazine publisher of the Aargau media house employs around 50 people and, according to its own figures, generates a turnover of around CHF 20 million. Karen Heidl, 43, comes from Munich, where she has worked for VNU Business Publications GmbH as Publishing Director, Associate Publisher and Editor-in-Chief since 2001. She had publishing responsibility for all print and online publications of the trade magazine publisher, which published the titles PC Professionell, Internet Professionell and Computer im Mittelstand until May 2007. Heidl entered the publishing industry in 1991 with a traineeship at the trade magazine and book publisher IWT in Vaterstetten near Munich. After working for International Thomson Publishing, the computer book publisher Markt & Technik and as a freelance author, she finally moved to the start-up Internet Cool Guide, where she worked as editor-in-chief and managing director.