Thomas Middelhoff

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Thomas Middelhoff (born May 11, 1953) is a German corporate manager. Since May 2004, Middelhoff has been chairman of the supervisory board of KarstadtQuelle, and since May 12, 2005 he has been CEO of the company.

Thomas Middelhoff was born in Düsseldorf, Germany as the son of a textile businessman. He studied business at the University of Münster and then doctored at the Institute for Marketing supervised by Heribert Meffert. While in university, he already worked in his father's business. After graduating, he received a high post in the company. In 1986 he switched to Bertelsmann, a multinational media corporation based in Germany, as assistant of the management of the graphic firm in Gütersloh. In 1990, he became a member of the board of directors of Bertelsmann.

Middelhoff recognized the potential of the new digital media early. So he made small investments into Firma Pixelpark in Berlin among others, for Bertelsmann. As recommended to him by the former managers of Springer Verlag Jan Henric Buettner and Andreas von Blottnitz he invested into the then rapidly expanding company AOL. This investment was extremely successful and would later influence Middelhof's ascent in the company to chairman of the board. In May 1995, he became a member of the governing board of AOL, during his time in this position Middelhoff became a "close friend" of the AOL founder Steve Case.

In 1995, Bertelsmann and AOL started the joint venture AOL Germany. From November 1998 to July 2002, Middelhoff was the CEO of the former. During this time, the company increased its internet activities by starting the online media portal BOL (Bertelsmann Online), which was sold to buch.de in 2002. But soon it would step back from these online engagements, for example by selling its shares of AOL-Europe back to Time Warner, which had fusioned with AOL in 2001. In January 2000, Middelhoff declined a director position at AOL and then resigned from the supervisory board of the corporation. The reason Middelhoff's parting with Bertelsmann is that probably his vision of the future of the company diferred from that of the "Patriarch" of the company Reinhard Mohn.

From 2003, Middelhoff coordinated the European matters of the holding company Investcorp. The German businesses of the corporation included Gerresheimer Glas and Callahan. After APCOA Parking was taken over by Investcorp in 2004, he was appointed into its supervisory board.

Since 2003, Middelhoff has also been a member of the board of the The New York Times Company responsible for the compensation committee. As a confidant of Madeleine Schickedanz, he became the chairman of KarstadtQuelle's supervisory board in June 2004 and its CEO in May 2005.