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The current head of finance and human resources, Petra Scharner-Wolff, will be CEO from 2025
Photo: dpa Picture-Alliance / Christian Charisius / picture alliance / Christian Cha
A generational change is imminent at the Hamburg family business Otto.
The 80-year-old company patriarch Michael Otto wants to hand over leadership in two steps by 2026, as the company announced on Monday.
Otto is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Otto Group.
The previous CEO, Alexander Birken, will replace him in this position on March 1, 2025.
Birken's successor on the Otto board will be Petra Scharner-Wolff, the previous finance and human resources manager.
At the same time, Katy Roewer joins the board and takes over Scharner-Wolff's responsibilities.
A year later, Otto's son Benjamin, who was originally considered his father's successor on the supervisory board, will take over the chairmanship of the board of trustees.
But Michael Otto apparently had other plans.
The board of trustees represents the Michael Otto Foundation as the majority owner of the Otto Group.
The company's father wants to devote more time to foundation work in the future
This marks the end of a decades-long era at Otto.
“The period of time was deliberately chosen to enable a gradual transition in peace and quiet,” the statement says.
“One of the biggest challenges for family businesses is successful generational change,” Michael Otto is quoted as saying.
»I am very confident that Benjamin will not only lead the Otto Group into a good economic future, but will also keep the special values of our family company alive.«
Otto contributed his majority stake in the company to a charitable foundation in 2014.
“It was important to me that the family always had the say and that the headquarters of our company remained in Hamburg and could not, for example, be relocated to any tax haven,” is his credo.
It was said that Otto himself wanted to devote more time to his foundation activities after his retirement.
This includes the Michael Otto Environmental Foundation, founded in 1993.
Otto, son of the company's founder Werner Otto, joined the Otto board in 1971 and took over as chairman in 1981 for 26 years.
In 2007, Otto moved to the top of the supervisory board.
Benjamin Otto has been a member and “forming partner” in the shareholder council of the Otto Group since mid-2015, as well as a member of the board of trustees of the Michael Otto Foundation.
He had already done his journeyman job by tracking down the Collins Internet trading project.
Collins later became the group company About You, which is now listed on the stock exchange.
zob/dpa