Business News
Bertelsmann CFO Thomas Rabe To Additionally Assume Leadership Of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investment Division (BDMI)
Wednesday 12. January 2011 - BDMI President Richard Sarnoff Joining KKR As Senior Advisor
Bertelsmann AG Chief Financial Officer Thomas Rabe will assume direct leadership of Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments division (BDMI), the international media company’s venture capital fund for emerging technology and new media business opportunities. These additional responsibilities for Mr. Rabe, 45, who is a member of the Executive Board of Bertelsmann AG, take effect February 1 with the departure of Richard Sarnoff, who has served as BDMI’s President since its formation in 2006. Mr. Sarnoff, 51, is joining Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), one of the world’s leading private-equity firms, as a Senior Advisor. Bertelsmann and KKR are partners in the fast-rising music-publishing joint venture BMG, whose Board of Directors Mr. Sarnoff will be joining in his new KKR capacity.
“Under his leadership, Richard and his BDMI team have built and implemented a robust investment vehicle,” said Mr. Rabe. Its portfolio of more than a dozen companies includes Trion, Mojiva, Qeep, American Reading Company, Vindicia, RoyaltyShare, and DealUnited. Mr. Rabe now will work closely with the division’s principals and staff in New York and Germany to advance the development of BDMI’s digital media holdings. They will continue to seek to invest in companies with strong management teams and to pursue innovative digital media technology, products, business models, and distribution channels worldwide.
A longstanding senior executive in Bertelsmann’s U.S. book publishing operations with strong experience in financial, strategic, new media, corporate development, and investment areas, Mr. Sarnoff rose to Chief Financial Officer of the former Bantam Doubleday Dell, and later Random House, following the latter’s acquisition by Bertelsmann in 1998 and its merger with the former to create the world’s largest trade book publisher. Mr. Sarnoff was a leader of the team that negotiated the purchase Random House from Advance Publications. In 2002, he became the first U.S. executive from a Bertelsmann company to serve on the Bertelsmann Supervisory Board, and established BDMI in 2006.
“This company has been my home for more than two decades, and the privilege of having such a varied career at Bertelsmann and Random House – and being able to contribute to the growth of companies with such strong financial, creative, and operational leadership has been a great preparation for what I hope will be an active role in transactions that will define the media industry in years to come. I have enormous pride in my Bertelsmann career, and in what we have achieved at BDMI, and look forward to future associations with the company,” said Mr. Sarnoff.
Thomas Rabe said, “On behalf of the Bertelsmann Executive Board, I thank Richard for his numerous and outstanding contributions during his more than two decades with our company. His appointment at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts is a tribute to his breadth of accomplishments and experience with us, his prescient understanding of the media and digital-media markets, as well as his dealmaking skills. We are pleased that he will join the Board of BMG, our music-publishing joint venture with KKR, which is fast becoming a major player in the music business, and look forward in exploring with him other partnerships between us in the future.”