The Metzingen fashion group Hugo Boss AG presented its personnel proposals for the supervisory board on Tuesday. Accordingly, Stephan Sturm should become the new chairman of the committee. A total of three new candidates were nominated and will stand for election at the upcoming annual general meeting on May 15, 2025.
Sturm led the Bad Homburg-based medical technology and healthcare group Fresenius as CEO from 2016 to 2022. The 61-year-old is currently chairman of the board of the Heinz Hermann Thiele Family Foundation. At Hugo Boss, he is now set to replace Hermann Waldemer as chairman of the supervisory board next May, who has led the committee since 2020. The company announced that Waldemer would resign his mandate at the end of the next general meeting.
Frasers Group CEO Michael Murray will also be nominated for the supervisory board
At the same time, according to a statement, Gaetano Marzotto and Robin Stalker will also be leaving the supervisory board. Andreas Kurali and Michael Murray were nominated for them. According to Hugo Boss, Kurali spent more than three decades at the tobacco company Philip Morris International and held various management positions during this time. Most recently, the 59-year-old was Deputy Chief Financial Officer and Head of Finance Transformation at Philip Morris International in Lausanne.
Murray has led the British retail group Frasers Group Plc as CEO since 2022. Since then, the 35-year-old has “played a key role in driving forward the transformation of the group and its further development in the premium segment and in the digital area,” according to a statement. The Frasers Group joined Hugo Boss in the summer of 2020 and currently holds around 15 percent of the group’s shares.
Hermann Waldemer is leaving the supervisory board after five years as chairman
The outgoing supervisory board chairman Waldemer justified the decision for his designated successor. “I am very pleased that we have gained such an experienced leader in Stephan Sturm for the Hugo Boss supervisory board,” he said in a statement. “Through his previous work on the supervisory board and as long-standing CEO and CFO of the healthcare group Fresenius, he brings a deep understanding of the capital market.”
Sturm will “be a great asset to the company, just like Andreas Kurali and Michael Murray,” emphasized Waldemer and also commented on his impending departure: “I myself will be retiring after ten years as a member of the supervisory board and five years as its chairman – knowing full well that Hugo Boss can look to the future with great confidence.” The company has “written a great success story under the leadership of Daniel Grieder” and will “continue on this path”.