A senior management reshuffle at Tui Group will see a new finance chief steer the tourism giant out of the Covid crisis.
Sebastian Ebel, currently heading the company’s holiday experiences arm, is taking charge of financial responsibilities.
He will replace Brigit Conix, who decided in the summer not to extend her contract leave the group at the end of 2020 after just two years.
“In the course of the corona crisis, she made a decisive contribution to securing the group’s liquidity and reducing fixed costs in all parts of the company,” Tui said while detailing the restructure.
Strategy chief Peter Kruger will take over a new executive board division comprising Tui’s central assets – hotel and cruise shareholdings and airlines as well as his previous area of responsibility for mergers and acquisitions.
Chief marketing officer Erik Friemuth’s responsibilities will be expanded as he takes control of marketing and in-house hotel brands Tui Blue, Robinson and Tui Magic Life while also taking over sales and customer operations.
“This will enable the potential of Tui’s strong brands to be exploited even more effectively in the future and will further strengthen the company’s image in the eyes of its customers,” the company said.
The Tui Musement digital and growth segment will be headed by its chief executive David Schelp.
The make up of the Tui executive board from January 1 will also include markets chief executive David Burling, former Tui UK and Ireland managing director.
Chief executive Fritz Joussen said: “The entire tourism sector continues to be in an unprecedented crisis – after the pandemic many things will have changed.
“With the new composition of the Tui management team, we are already in the best possible position to get off to a good start after the pandemic.”
Tui board chairman Dieter Zetsche said: “I am confident that in the new set-up of the group executive committee under the leadership of Fritz Joussen we will be ideally positioned to master the impact of the pandemic and lead Tui back to success.
“From the grounding of the Boeing 737 Max to the pandemic, these have not been easy years.”
