A change in the executive suite at NürnbergMesse Group: Prof. Dr Roland Fleck will retire as joint CEO of NürnbergMesse GmbH when his current contract expires on 31 July 2023. The executive, age 61, has chosen to leave for personal reasons. “After careful consideration, I have decided to retire as from 1 August. I have notified the shareholders of NürnbergMesse,” Professor Fleck said. Among the factors influencing the CEO’s decision to resign from his 12-year tenure at the head of the Franconian exhibitions company were his life-threatening illness in 2018/2019 and its implications. Effective with Fleck’s retirement, his fellow CEO Peter Ottmann will head the business of NürnbergMesse GmbH by himself, in cooperation with a strong second management level.
Nuremberg Lord Mayor Marcus König, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of NürnbergMesse GmbH, paid tribute to the outgoing CEO: “Roland Fleck’s 12 years as joint head of the NürnbergMesse Group have been associated with an unparalleled success story for the City of Nuremberg as an events location and for the company’s sites abroad. Prof. Fleck’s management has very significantly embodied a sure sense for trends in the trade fair business, for new topics and for new markets in other countries. He and Peter Ottmann have made NürnbergMesse one of the 15 largest exhibitions companies in the world. And the two of them, together with their team, have successfully guided the company through difficult times since the pandemic broke out in 2020. For all of that, Roland Fleck has earned my respect and special thanks.”
In concert with Peter Ottmann, Roland Fleck took over managing NürnbergMesse in 2011. Previously, after a decade in banking, Fleck had been from 1996 to 2011 Vice Mayor of the City of Nuremberg in charge of economic affairs and city development. Said Prof. Fleck, “I want to thank Peter Ottmann for 12 years of shared responsibilities for NürnbergMesse and for his ever-trustworthy work together on such friendly terms.”
All along, it has been important to the departing chief executive “not merely to leave the helm amidst the turbulence of a pandemic, war, and energy crisis – but to leave at a suitable moment. I feel that moment has now arrived,” he said. The NürnbergMesse Group’s compass, he explains, is fine-tuned for the future, and the company is now well positioned for the years ahead after its successful comeback in 2022.
Bavarian State Minister Albert Füracker, Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board of NürnbergMesse GmbH, likewise expressed his esteem for Prof. Dr Fleck: “On behalf of the Free State of Bavaria as a company shareholder, and for myself personally, I want to thank Roland Fleck for his outstanding performance at the head of the company. Over the past 12 years, he and Peter Ottmann have led NürnbergMesse with economic and strategic foresight. More than ever, NürnbergMesse is a showpiece in the state’s investment portfolio, with an importance that ranges far beyond the Northern Bavarian economic region. Expanding activities in other countries, with involvements in important growth markets, will have an especially positive impact on the company’s home site. Roland Fleck is a particularly eminent advocate of this international focus – while at the same time remaining firmly rooted in the company’s Franconian homeland. With Peter Ottmann as future sole CEO, we can count on continuity, so that after overcoming the impediments imposed by the pandemic, the company can look forward to a continuing record of success.”
