Tamedia appoints Oliver Rihs as new CEO of Classifieds & Marketplaces
Tamedia Publishing has found a successor for outgoing executive board member Christoph Brand. Olivier Rihs will take over as head of the «Classifieds & Marketplaces» division «no later than May 1, 2020,» Tamedia announced on Friday.
As previously announced, the Tamedia Group will undertake a strategic realignment as of the beginning of 2020, creating a new decentralized structure consisting of four independent divisions, including "Classifieds & Marketplaces," the statement continues. Christoph Brand, who will move to energy group Axpo as CEO in the summer of 2020, will ensure a smooth transition until Olivier Rihs takes office, it said.
Olivier Rihs' task will be to continue to drive the organic growth of this division, which has been developing strongly for several years. In a very competitive market, the future autonomy of this area will ensure optimal conditions in favor of transparency and growth, including in the context of possible partnerships and acquisitions. The aim is also to strengthen innovation activity and promote synergies and knowledge transfer between the various brands in the portfolio.
Rihs, who is from French-speaking Switzerland, has been running his own advisory and consulting company Olivier Rihs Management since 2018 and has been director of the Geneva International Motor Show since February 2019. The "bilingue" worked in various roles at Scout24 Suisse, a Swiss network of online marketplaces, from 2002 to 2018, and was CEO of the company from 2011 to 2018.
Search for successor underway
In a separate announcement, the Geneva Motor Show wrote that it was already looking for a successor to Rihs. Chairman of the Board Maurice Turrettini "regrets" the resignation of Rihs, as he had given the Motor Show new impetus.
"I made my decision for private reasons, there were no strategic differences with the Board of Directors," Rihs stressed when asked by news agency AWP. "The next edition of the Auto Salon is going well, many projects are already in the works and will be presented in December," he said.
Among the major innovations for the 90th edition, scheduled for March, is the introduction of a special race track that will allow guests to test electric or alternatively powered cars. "We have space for 48 vehicles, but demand (from manufacturers) far exceeds supply," the Noch director told AWP. (SDA/swi)
