The fund company of Deutsche Bank has some catching up to do digitally and in exchange with the supervisory authorities.

At least that's how you can interpret a change in the management of DWS, which was informed on Tuesday.

Accordingly, the tasks of the 67-year-old Chief Administrative Officer Mark Cullen, who is leaving at the end of the year, will be divided between two people: Angela Maragkopoulou as Chief Operating Officer and Karen Kuder as Chief Administrative Officer.

Hanno Mussler

Editor in Business.

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Maragkopoulou joins on January 1, 2023 from Deutsche Telekom, where she held management positions in information technology and data analysis and led the Telekom IT Hub for artificial intelligence and robotics.

Previously, she worked for Vodafone for 19 years, most recently as global head of the Internet of Things.

This networking between an industrial company, its suppliers and ideally also financial service providers is one of the hobbies of the new DWS boss Stefan Hoops.

Greenwashing allegations

Just two months ago, Hoops transitioned from heading up Deutsche Bank's corporate banking division to chairing the board of DWS.

His predecessor Asoka Wöhrmann had to leave after a raid on the Frankfurt headquarters of DWS.

At the beginning of June, the public prosecutor's office was looking for evidence that DWS had made false statements about its sustainable offers.

The supervisory authorities in the USA and Germany are also examining the allegations that DWS has made its fund investments appear greener than they actually are ("greenwashing").

In the future, these allegations will be met above all by the second newcomer to DWS at manager level.

For Karen Kuder, who has been with the Deutsche Bank Group for more than 20 years, it is a return, she has already worked for DWS.

In the spring of 2020, Kuder replaced Florian Drinhausen in the important post of General Counsel at Deutsche Bank and since then, in accordance with Legal Director Stefan Simon, has settled a number of legal disputes between Deutsche Bank and the supervisory authorities, particularly in the USA.

Unlike before, Deutsche Bank has since passed the stringent annual regulatory stress tests in the United States - most recently even best of all 34 banks tested against crises.

The fact that Deutsche Bank is now letting Kuder move to DWS also shows how seriously it takes the greenwashing allegations against DWS.

In addition, a number of things still have to be made independent in DWS, which has been listed on the stock exchange since spring 2018.

The dependency on Deutsche Bank, which holds around 80 percent of the DWS shares, is still great.