Thomas Middelhoff

Thomas Middelhoff (born 11 May 1953 ) is a German corporate manager.

In 1986 he moved to Bertelsmann, a multinational media corporation based in Germany, as assistant manager of the graphic firm in Gütersloh.

He received his doctorate in 1987 from Bruno Tietz at the University of Saarbrücken with a thesis on the integrated planning of communication systems: illustrated by the introduction of Btx in retail-oriented branch systems and cooperative groups.

A year later he became managing director of the subsidiary Elsnerdruck in Berlin, and in 1989 managing director of Mohndruck.

In 1990, he became a member of the board of directors of Bertelsmann.

From 1994 to 1998, he was a member of the Executive Board of Bertelsmann AG, until he then served as CEO of the Bertelsmann media group from November 1998 to July 2002.

In 1994 he was appointed to the Executive Board of Bertelsmann AG and took over management of corporate development and coordination of the multimedia business, where he was responsible for the strategic realignment of the group in the field of electronic entertainment.

Middelhoff recognized the potential of the new digital media early.

He made small investments into the company Pixelpark in Berlin among others, on Bertelsmann's behalf.

This was followed by further investments in Lycos and Mediaways.

As an early believer in the rapid development of the Internet, he suggested a large financial participation of Bertelsmann in America Online (AOL) when it was still a young company, and created the joint venture AOL Europe, with a financial holding of $50 million for a 5% stake.

This investment was extremely successful and would later influence Middelhoff's ascent in the company to CEO and chairman of the board.

In May 1995, he became a member of the governing board of AOL, and during his time in this position Middelhoff became a "close friend" of AOL's founder, Steve Case.

In 1995, Bertelsmann and AOL started the joint venture AOL Germany.

From November 1998 to July 2002, Middelhoff was the CEO of Bertelsmann.

During this time he built up the RTL Group, today the largest operator of advertising-financed commercial television and radio in Europe.

Besides his position at the Bertelsmann group, Middelhoff has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung, too (2000–2002).

But Bertelsmann soon stepped back from these online engagements, selling its shares of AOL-Europe back to Time Warner and sold the 50% stake for 7.6 billion euros in cash, which had merged with AOL in 2001.

In 2002, he was Head of Corporate Investments in Europe for Investcorp International Ltd until May 2005.

He expanded the book division into the world market leader by purchasing Random House and intensified the company's Internet activities by starting the online media portal BOL (Bertelsmann Online), which was sold to Buch.de Internetstores in 2002.

In addition, he was responsible for a planned joint venture with Amazon, which did not receive the approval of the majority on Bertelsmann's Executive Board.

Beginning in 2003, Middelhoff coordinated the European affairs of the holding company Investcorp.

The German businesses of the corporation included and Callahan.

Since 2003 Middelhoff has also been a member of the board of The New York Times Company responsible for the compensation committee.

After APCOA Parking was taken over by Investcorp in 2004, he was appointed to its supervisory board.

As a confidant of Madeleine Schickedanz, he became the chairman of KarstadtQuelle AG's supervisory board in June 2004 and its CEO in May 2005.

From May 2005 to February 2009, Middelhoff then took over as Chairman of the Board of Management of the retail group Arcandor (previously KarstadtQuelle).

After Arcandor, Thomas Middelhoff founded the investment company BLM (Berger Lahnstein Middelhoff & Partners LLP) in London with Roland Berger and Florian Lahnstein.

The spin-off Pulse Capital Partners LLC emerged from this company.

Middelhoff grew up as the third of five children in a Catholic family in Düsseldorf and Ratingen.

His father worked as a sales representative in his uncle's textile factory.

He studied business at the University of Münster and received his doctorate at the Institute for Marketing under the supervision of Heribert Meffert.

While at university, he was already working in his father's textile business.

After graduating he was given a high post in the company.

KarstadtQuelle was renamed Arcandor in 2007.

Middelhoff pushed through the renaming of KarstadtQuelle as Arcandor and divided the operational business into the three core areas of department store (Karstadt), mail order (Primondo) and tourism (Thomas Cook).

When he joined the company, the share price was 7.60 euros and peaked in 2007 at around 29 euros.

Due to the expansion of the tourism business, sales rose to 21 billion euros in 2007 and equity grew.

Since 2007, Middelhoff was Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Thomas Cook Group, the world's second largest tourism company, in which Arcandor held 52% of the shares.

Middelhoff was removed from his position as CEO of Arcandor and Thomas Cook Group in March 2009.