New boss for Praktiker

The new boss of the German Praktiker group of companies will be Thomas Fox, 54, who is due to take over as chairman of the management board on 1 October 2011. The company announced the departure of his predecessor, Wolfgang Werner, just one month ago. Praktiker’s supervisory board has also appointed Josef Schultheis to the management board. He will have the function of acting chairman until Fox takes up his position.Praktiker says in a press release that Thomas Fox is “an internationally successful turnaround manager and rescue specialist”. Most recently he was responsible for the reorganisation of Karstadt, a German department store chain, as chief restructuring officer and chairman of the board from autumn 2009 till spring 2011. Josef Schultheis also comes from there. His last position was as finance director of Karstadt; he also acted as adviser to the company for two years during the reorganisation process.