Challenging Times For Olaf Koch

Olaf Koch is CEO and Chairman of the Management Board of METRO AG. This company is considered to be the fifth-largest retailer in the world by revenue; it’s behind Wal-Mart, Carrefour, Tesco and Kroger. It is one of the big boys in the retail and wholesale business. The group is based in Düsseldorf, Germany and has the largest market share in that country. METRO AG is of the most internationalized wholesale and retail corporations.

Koch is thus heading a very large publicly traded company and interestingly his early career path had nothing to do with store retailing. Born on June 1, 1970 in Bad Soden am Taunus, he is a graduate of business management from the University of Cooperative Education Stuttgart. 

Koch’s career had basically been in the auto industry.  Starting in 1994 he was Manager for Finance Processing and Systems at Daimler Benz AG. In January 1996 he founded and was the CEO of IT-Networks GmbH until July 1998. Then it was back with DaimlerChrysler AG where he was Senior Manager at the Corporate War Room from July 1998 to November 1999. Koch went on to hold other higher positions including Vice President, Corporate e-Business and Member of the Board of Management Mercedes Car Group responsible for Finance, Controlling and Strategy.

He left DaimlerChrysler AG in August 2007 and then joined private equity group Permira Beteiligungsberatung GmbH as Managing Director of Operations from October 2007 to September 2009. Then the auto industry executive with strengths in IT and finance joined retail giant METRO AG in September 2009 as Member of the Management Board and CFO.

Since becoming CEO Koch has vowed to change the top-down corporate culture at METRO. He wants more open, bold and controversial discussions taking place. This hasn’t been easy given the recent performance of the company which showed profits dropping. Heads of top ranking executive have rolled with five having been asked to leave.

Experts say Koch’ senior team now does not have long experience on retail. He is continuing to stream line and centralize operations to cut cost and grow the company.  These are challenging times for Koch. Given that he came from a different background perhaps the company’s board did really want change. As for Koch he knows very well that he wasn’t given the top post just so he could enjoy smelling the flowers.