Georg Rau to succeed Dieter Urbanke as Hermes Fulfilment chief executive officer

Dr Georg Rau (45) is to take over as Hermes Fulfilment executive board chairman as of 1 January 2017. Rau will be taking the place of Dieter Urbanke (63) who has held the top job at the Hamburg-based distance selling service provider since 2006. Urbanke is to step down at the end of 2016 to enter retirement as planned.

Urbanke has worked for the Otto Group for over 40 years. During this time he has held a number of different leadership roles. As director of warehouse operations his responsibilities included the e-commerce logistics centre in Haldensleben (Saxony-Anhalt), the logistics centres in Ohrdruf (Thuringia) and Löhne (North Rhine-Westphalia) and the returns logistics centre in Hamburg. In March 2006, when the decision was made to hive off the warehouse operations into a separate company, Urbanke was named chief executive officer (CEO) of Hermes Warehousing Solutions GmbH. In 2009 the name of the company was changed to Hermes Fulfilment GmbH.

“Since its foundation, Urbanke has formatively shaped the development of the new company. He guided it along the path to offering client-specific logistics services and has turned it into one of the leading providers of full service e-commerce solutions in Europe,” said Hanjo Schneider, member of the executive board for services of the Otto Group and chairman of the supervisory board of Hermes Europe GmbH. “Given his ability to understand the needs of the market, Urbanke has played a significant role in the successful development of the company,” Schneider continued.

Rau now wants to build on this successful work. The incoming CEO describes his two main goals as being “focused around both driving our client-specific logistics services forward and actively supporting the retail organisations of the Otto Group with tailored fulfilment solutions which align perfectly to their ongoing growth strategy. To achieve these goals we will need to continue to put a sharp focus on the market and adapt our services as needed.” Another major focus of the work of the incoming CEO will be on modernising the IT infrastructure. “Over the past few months we have already executed a number of large scale IT projects,” Rau explained. “We are currently rolling out our SAP based IT platform to other Hermes Fulfilment sites, providing the basis for flexible and scalable logistics processes. Only with a modern IT system landscape will we be able to satisfy the ever-increasing demands of our customers and keep up with the increasingly complex business models in the retail trade,” Rau added.

Rau has a doctorate in physics and has been chief information officer of Hermes Fulfilment GmbH since August 2014. In this role he was responsible for human resources and IT. Before joining Hermes Fulfilment, he held various leadership positions at McKinsey & Company, software maker SAP and logistics company Deutsche Post DHL. As CEO, Rau will be responsible for human resources and IT; strategy and business development; finance and controlling; and logistics systems and fulfilment solutions development. Frank Marquard and Andreas du Plessis are the other two members of the executive board. Marquard (54) has been responsible for the operational management of Hermes Fulfilment GmbH since April 2013 while Andreas du Plessis (43) has been in charge of sales and marketing since July 2016.

About Hermes Fulfilment: Hermes Fulfilment provides global full service e-commerce solutions for the distance retail sector. It is headquartered in Hamburg and has locations in Haldensleben, Löhne and Ohrdruf. The company manages the entire supply chain and offers services ranging from logistics services such as warehousing and returns management through accounts receivable management to financial services and customer care. Hermes Fulfilment is one of twelve companies belonging to the Hermes Group, a globally operating services provider which is part of the Otto Group. The companies operating under the Hermes umbrella brand provide all the services required by retail industry supply chains: sourcing, quality assurance, transport, fulfilment, parcel services and 2-man delivery. In 2015 the annual sales of the Hermes Group rose to €2,460m. At present it employs 12,215 people. Hermes operates worldwide and has subsidiaries in the UK, Russia, Italy and Austria. Hermes has been an official premium partner of the German Bundesliga since 2013.
Find out more at: newsroom.hermesworld.com.