At the 2012 Frankfurter Buchmesse. Image: FBM, Peter Hirth
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
Knops: ‘Ever Closer Together as an International Organization’
Based in Frankfurt, Germany’s MVB has established a central business development department, as part of a repositioning project “to further develop” the company’s “range of services and tap into additional business areas.”
Joint responsibility for the new unit will be handled by Timo Wind—who is to join MVB on November 1—and Felix Lenz, who made an internal move to the new unit on Monday (September 1). Both Lenz and Wind report to the company’s CEO, Meike Knops.
MVB is a technology and information provider which enables major platforms to use international metadata standards to allow publishers and bookstores to promote products in their own markets and elsewhere. The formats and interfaces are adjusted according to markets’ standards, including face-to-face networking.
MVB, as Publishing Perspectives readers know, has offices in Frankfurt, London, Mexico City, New York City, and São Paulo.
Meike Knop lined ftw
In a prepared statement to the news media on this development, Knops is quoted, saying, “Our goal is to secure and expand MVB’s growth and competitiveness in the long term. To this end, we are moving ever closer together as an international organization.
“In the framework of a matrix structure, Timo Wind and Felix Lenz will work across locations with the teams from product management, marketing and sales, and controlling, and will be responsible for our innovation management.
“I’m very pleased that with Wind and Lenz we’re able to establish a vehicle in which their skills and experience complement each other perfectly.”
Timo Wind
Wind is a strategy and business-development specialist with international experience in setting up growth initiatives and transformation projects.
Most recently, he worked as a senior consultant at Grunenberg & Comp., where he developed a cloud growth strategy for a bank on the DAX40 blue-chip stock index and led the post-merger integration of an SaaS company in the financial services industry. Wind also designed the strategic realignment of an auditing firm.
Prior to that, he worked as an independent strategy and growth consultant with clients in the private equity and tech sectors and gained entrepreneurial experience as the founder of a property technology start-up.
Felix Lenz
Lenz is a specialist in market and competition analysis as well as new business models.
In his last role, he worked in MVB’s Business Unit Digital, in which he established the service for assigning International Standard Name Identifiers (ISNI) to creators.
In business unit media, Felix Lenz was responsible for the development and refinement of focused information services. This included the relaunch of the Börsenblatt bestseller lists and the establishment and marketing of the job market Medien.Jobs platform.
Prior to that, he was responsible for the systematic planning, management, and control of MVB key figures at the Börsenverein Group holding.
At Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 15 to 19), MVB will be in Hall 4.0, at Stand F22, with its MVB-Austausch format (MVB Exchange), and themed consultation hours available on Frankfurt Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. More details are here.
More from Publishing Perspectives on MVB is here. More from us on bookselling is here, more on book retail is here, and more on distribution is here. More on the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels is here. Publishing Perspectives is a brand of Frankfurter Buchmesse, operated through MVB US, Inc.
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