Olivier van den Bossche is back at Galeria as Sales Director and is no stranger to the department store group.
As of June 1st, van den Bosche will return to Galeria as head of sales. From 2014 to 2017 he was Managing Director of Galeria Kaufhof, and from 2007 to 2014 he was CEO of the Belgian department store company Inno, a subsidiary of the merged department store group Galeria Karstadt Kaufhof. Most recently, he worked as Chief Operating Officer at the Dutch cosmetics company Rituals.
“I am delighted that Olivier van den Bossche is returning to our Galeria and in this difficult competitive environment I cannot imagine a better department store expert with both international and sales expertise with whom we can overcome this situation together,” said Galeria boss Miguel Müllenbach in a statement message on Wednesday.
The previous Galeria sales manager Engelbert Thulfaut is to advise on the rollout of the new branch concepts in the future. In October, Galeria presented three pilot stores in Frankfurt, Kassel and Kleve, based on which all of the company’s department stores will be modernized. After the reopening in Euskirchen in April, the houses in Fulda, Munich-Marienplatz, Centro Oberhausen and Hamburg AEZ are to be renovated; a completely new house opened in Berlin-Tegel.
New e-commerce expert for Galeria
Michael Drexler has been the new head of e-commerce at Galeria since May, as his profile on the LinkedIn careers network shows. The former head of e-commerce at Media Markt Switzerland succeeds Andreas Hink. At the beginning of the year it was announced that Hink would leave the group. But he will continue to be available in an advisory capacity when the new online shop is launched.
The online team headed by Michael Drexler was further strengthened with additional staff and capacities and processes for automated online shipping were also adapted in the logistics area, said Müllenbach. “Unfortunately, consumer sentiment remains heavily burdened by the high inflation and the Ukraine war even after the pandemic – we also don’t know today whether Corona with all its consequences will not return in winter. We are countering this with the consistent rollout of our 2.0 strategy at all levels: sales, digitization, logistics, processes.”