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Post boss Frank Appel (March 2020)
Photo: WOLFGANG RATTAY / REUTERS
Frank Appel will be relinquishing the chairmanship of Deutsche Post in the year after next.
The 60-year-old's contract, which expires in the coming year, has been extended to May 2023, the Bonn-based company announced after a meeting of the supervisory board.
The background is that Appel has decided not to be available for another full contract term.
Appel's successor has already been determined.
From May 2023, the current head of the German letter and parcel business, Tobias Meyer, will be at the helm of Swiss Post.
Meyer has been a member of the Executive Board since March 2019.
Appel himself can count on another top position: According to insiders, he is the favorite for the post of Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Telekom.
The former McKinsey consultant Appel has been with Deutsche Post since 2000.
In 2002 he became a member of the board of directors, and in 2008 he moved to the post of chairman of the board.
In the past, when asked whether he would like to pursue another term in office, he had always said that his job at the top of the Post, with its roughly 570,000 employees, was great fun.
During his time as CEO, Appel decisively pushed the internationalization of Swiss Post forward.
Despite the corona crisis, the group recently posted record results.
In addition, Appel has launched a billion-dollar digitization offensive with Strategy 2025.
The Post is also to become greener: the Group is aiming for zero-emissions logistics by 2050.
If Appel actually succeeds supervisory board chairman Ulrich Lehner at Deutsche Telekom, he would temporarily hold key positions in two corporations with a high level of federal participation.
Lehner's term of office ends with the Annual General Meeting in 2022. The federal government holds around 20.5 percent of Swiss Post through the state-owned development bank KfW.
At Telekom, 13.8 percent are owned by the federal government, and another 16.6 percent are owned by KfW.
fdi / Reuters