Christian Unger (Manager)

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Christian Unger, 2019

Christian Unger (born September 8, 1967 in Munich ) is a German - Swiss manager and entrepreneur . He was CEO of Ringier AG and is currently a partner at the Partners Group in Zug .

biography

Unger was born in Munich and grew up bilingual (German / French). He attended the Salem boarding school on Lake Constance , which he graduated from high school in 1987 . He studied art history and philosophy (preliminary diploma) at the University of Munich , then business administration at the EBS Business School in Oestrich-Winkel (diploma).

Bertelsmann

Christian Unger began his professional career at the Bertelsmann Group ; he was deployed from 1993 to 1998 in Munich and Gütersloh . He worked as a board assistant and later as managing director of two specialist information publishers; from 1996 onwards, in joint ventures with the Burda Group and the scientific Springer publishing house, he set up paid online services for doctors. In 1998 he moved to Brussels to restructure Bertelsmann's Belgian activities - among other things by separating into a Flemish and a French business as well as considerable job cuts. From 2000 to 2002 he was a member of the Board of Management for Marketing and Internet at Bertelsmann France. From 2002, as CEO of Bertelsmann China, he founded various joint ventures in Shanghai , Beijing and Hong Kong with almost 2,000 employees and invested the group in China's first private book retail chain.

In 2005 he left Bertelsmann and switched to Karstadt / Quelle ; there he took over the development of the Eastern European business. In 2006 he was appointed CEO of the Internet auction house Tradus (Ricardo) in London . He led the e-commerce company with its various online auction platforms and e-commerce portals in twelve countries. Under his leadership, the price of the Tradus share tripled; in 2007 it was the best performer within the FTSE 250 index . In March 2008, Tradus was sold to Naspers for around CHF 2 billion . Until 2009, Unger was CEO of the Naspers subsidiary MIH Internet Europe B.V. and was responsible for the implementation of the Naspers Internet acquisition strategy in Western and Eastern Europe.

Ringier

On January 1, 2009 Unger took over the operational management of the media group Ringier AG . As a result of the financial crisis , he launched an austerity program, which led to a significant cost reduction in the group in the same year; the company recovered quickly and in 2010 the cash flow margin was back to pre-crisis levels. Under him, a Swiss joint venture was founded with the ticketing company CTS Eventim ( Eventim CH AG ).

Under Unger, the merging of the editorial offices of Blick , SonntagsBlick , Blick am Abend and Blick.ch resulted in the creation of the first publishing newsroom in Switzerland. He was one of the architects of the Ringier Axel Springer Media AG holding company, founded in July 2010 , in which the activities of Ringier and Axel Springer in the Czech Republic, Serbia, Poland and Slovakia were combined. The two major publishers each have a 50 percent share in the joint venture.

During his time as CEO, Ringier made several acquisitions . As part of the expansion of the digital online business, a stake in the online platform DeinDeal.ch was acquired in June . In August 2011, Edipresse A. S. Romania , a joint venture between the Swiss Edipresse publishing group and the Axel Springer publishing group, was taken over. Unger also worked in the acquisitions of Onet.pl in Poland and jobs.ch with. On April 5, 2012, he handed over the management of the Ringiers Group to the former CEO of Ringier Switzerland and Germany, Marc Walder . He advised Ringier until the middle of the year and then worked as interim CEO at the German games manufacturer bigpoint GmbH , where he restructured until the end of 2012.

Partners Group

Unger has been involved with the Zug-based private equity firm Partners Group since the beginning of 2013 . There he heads the global TMT activities and is co-head of the 50-strong Industry Value Creation Team that he has set up . On April 30, 2013 Unger was admitted to the Board of Directors of Publigroupe , but left this position in 2015 when Publigroupe was sold to Swisscom .

In January 2019, the manager was also appointed Co-Head Corporate Governance at Partners Group. In this role, he and the former CEO of the company, Christoph Rubeli, manage all of the board memberships of around 40 investments and all portfolio companies. Unger himself is on the boards of Civica (London), GlobalLogic ( San José ), Kindercare ( Portland ), Curvature ( Charlotte and Santa Barbara ), Softonic ( Barcelona ) and SPI ( Manila ) for the Partners Group .

Unger, who has also had Swiss citizenship since 2019, is married and lives with his wife and three children in Erlenbach and St. Moritz .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Group Management Ringier AG ( Memento from July 15, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Partners and Managing Directors , Partners Group website , accessed August 4, 2019
  3. ↑ Christian Unger , Internationales Biographisches Archiv 28/2010 of July 13, 2010, in the Munzinger Archive ( beginning of article freely available)
  4. ↑ a b c Alice Baumann, “Changes stimulate me” , Handelszeitung , September 1, 2009
  5. ↑ Bertelsmann: In the Middle Kingdom , Manager Magazin , December 3, 2003
  6. ↑ Change of leadership at Ringier AG , press release Ringier AG from October 29, 2008 ( Memento from November 2, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  7. ↑ Interview with Christian Unger: I am an optimist In: DOMO international , December 2008
  8. ^ South African Stocks: Gold Fields, Naspers and Tiger Brands , Bloomberg , March 7, 2008
  9. ^ Change in the Management of Ringier AG , press release on the Ringier AG website, October 29, 2008
  10. ^ The three-pillar principle , NZZ , April 6, 2011
  11. ↑ a b c 2003-2015: Ringier today - international, multimedia, diversified , On the history of Ringier, Ringier Axel Springer Switzerland corporate website
  12. ↑ Ex-Ringier boss Christian Unger becomes Bigpoint COO , Meedia.de , July 20, 2012
  13. ^ Ex-Ringier boss Unger goes to Partners Group , Bilanz.ch , May 2, 2013
  14. ↑ PubliGroupe General Assembly approves all proposals of the Board of Directors ( Memento of August 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  15. ^ Christian Unger , GlobalLogic website
personal data
SURNAME Unger, Christian
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German publishing manager
DATE OF BIRTH September 8, 1967
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich