Business News
DeutschlandCard getting new managing director: Lessing to succeed Ranzinger
Tuesday 09. December 2008 - Markus Lessing (41), a member of the Executive Board at arvato services, will become managing director of the arvato services subsidiary DeutschlandCard GmbH in Munich on Jan. 1, 2009. He will succeed Alexandra Ranzinger (39) who will leave the company next year for personal reasons.
Over the past years, Alexandra Ranzinger dedicated herself to developing and establishing DeutschlandCard GmbH on the market. Her successor, Markus Lessing, is a proven customer-loyalty and CRM expert.
“In Markus Lessing, DeutschlandCard GmbH is gaining an executive leader who has already achieved many successes at the services division of arvato AG, including the development and introduction of numerous national and international customer-card programs,” said Eckhard Südmersen, a member of the Executive Board of arvato AG. Südmersen added: “In his new position, he will intensely focus on systematically refining the cross-sector, multi-partner program, positioning the DeutschlandCard brand, extending the partner portfolio and managing the relationship with current partners.”
After earning his degree in business at the Gesamthochschule Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Markus Lessing started his career in 1991 as a consultant and key-account manager at the Altana subsidiary DAT AG. In 1993, he became sales director at PMD GmbH. Two years later, he joined the Bertelsmann business unit Corporate Services Distribution and became head of sales and marketing. In 1999, he assumed leadership of Bertelsmann bE-Commerce Service. And, in 2002, he was named head of the product line Consulting/Business Development at arvato services and was also appointed to the companys Executive Board. Markus Lessing was born in 1967 in Wermelskirchen, is married and has three daughters.
“Im really looking forward to my new job at DeutschlandCard GmbH and will do all I can to work with the program partners and the great team in Munich to continue writing the success story of DeutschlandCard,” Markus Lessing says.