Petra Busch and Vithunan Lingeswaran lead dpa subsidiary news aktuell (PHOTO)

2023-11-03 08:32:12

Hamburg (ots) – The new dual leadership of news aktuell is in place: From December 1st, Petra Busch (55) and Vithunan Lingeswaran (35) will lead the largest dpa subsidiary and together form the management board. The previous long-standing managing director, Edith Stier-Thompson, is resigning from her position at the end of November as planned due to her age. At picture alliance, where Petra Busch currently works as managing director, the management team around managing director Andreas Genz will be strengthened on December 1st by Nicole Trester as Head of Operations with power of attorney and Burkhard Schwetje as Head of Tech Team.

“With Petra Busch and Vithunan Lingeswaran, we have found a dream team for news aktuell. Both complement each other perfectly. The task of the new management is to provide the right answers in terms of innovation, customer benefit and performance in an increasingly diverse and competitive communications world,” says Peter Kropsch, chairman of the dpa management. “Petra Busch already knows news aktuell as a manager and has proven in recent years at our subsidiary picture alliance that she can lead a media company extremely successfully. Vithunan Lingeswaran is characterized by excellent expertise in product management and the control of IT processes “He also impressively demonstrated how to recognize customer needs and successfully convert them into product ideas,” continued Peter Kropsch.

Petra Busch worked at news aktuell from 2004 to 2016. During this time, she was responsible for the international distribution of press releases and the development of today’s zimpel business unit. After positions at PR Newswire (now Cision), one of the world’s largest PR service providers, and Argus Data Insights, Petra Busch returned to the dpa group in 2020, where she successfully formed the management of dpa Picture-Alliance GmbH together with Andreas Genz.

Vithunan Lingeswaran has been working for the dpa group since 2021 and was previously employed at the CONTALIS Economic Institute in Hamburg. After joining the digital subsidiary dpa infocom as IT manager, he moved to news aktuell in 2022. There, as Chief Innovation Officer and Chief Product Officer, he is responsible for the strategic development of the successful PR services and has provided significant impetus for the future viability of the largest and highest-revenue dpa subsidiary.

“I would like to thank Edith Stier-Thompson from the bottom of my heart for almost a decade of successful, excellent and groundbreaking work,” says dpa CEO Peter Kropsch. “Under the leadership of Edith Stier-Thompson, news aktuell has further expanded its importance as an outstanding strategic and economic pillar of the dpa group. She leaves behind a healthy, innovative and economically strong company that is the market leader in its segment. I wish Edith Stier -Thompson all the best for the future,” continued Peter Kropsch. Together with the new management around Petra Busch and Vithunan Lingeswaran, the two authorized representatives Philipp Lurz and Michael Voß form the news aktuell management team.

About current news:

As a wholly owned subsidiary of dpa, news aktuell provides companies, institutions and associations with effective access to media and consumers and supports them in telling their stories easily and successfully. Using the digital tools ots and zimpel, PR content reaches all media formats such as classic print titles, high-click online portals or social networks. In addition, news aktuell publishes all of its customers’ PR content www.presseportal.de, one of the PR portals with the widest reach in Germany. This means that all relevant target groups worldwide are reached, from editorial teams to specialist blogs, digital influencers and interested private individuals. news aktuell has been on the market since 1989 and employs over 135 people. The company headquarters is in Hamburg. Other locations are in Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich.

About dpa:

The German Press Agency (dpa) was founded in 1949 and is one of the world’s leading independent news agencies. dpa supplies media, companies and organizations with editorial offers. This includes texts, photos, videos, graphics, radio reports and other formats. As an internationally active agency, dpa reports in seven languages. Around 1,000 journalists work from around 140 locations at home and abroad. dpa’s shareholders include around 170 German media companies. The dpa editorial team works according to the principles set out in the dpa statute: independent of worldviews, commercial companies or governments. The central editorial office, headed by editor-in-chief Sven Gösmann, is located in Berlin. The management around its chairman Peter Kropsch works at the company headquarters in Hamburg. The chairman of the supervisory board is David Brandstätter (Main-Post GmbH, Würzburg).

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