Kempinski Hotels has promoted Markus Semer to Deputy CEO, as part of its long-term succession planning for the Management Board.

Kempinski Hotels’ has announced that, as part of its long-term succession planning for the Management Board, Markus Semer has been promoted to Deputy CEO, effective October 29, 2014.

The Supervisory Board of Kempinski AG and the Board of Directors of Kempinski Hotels SA have unanimously agreed to nominate Semer to this role. As Deputy CEO, Semer continues in his responsibilities for group development through portfolio and associated business growth, the group’s major growth areas. He will complement Alejandro Bernabe, CEO, and his fellow Management Board members in implementing company strategy and change management as part of a smooth transition process; overseeing the related structural and process changes under his corporate affairs mandate.

Michael D Selby, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Kempinski AG, states that he “recognised Markus Semer’s talent for strategic and structural planning early on, and appointed him to the Management Board back in 2008. We have consistently groomed him with new challenges, which he handled with an entrepreneurial approach each time.”

Semer was successively given responsibility for strategic planning and corporate affairs, and since 2013, he oversees the group’s development. Since Semer restructured development, the group is now represented in each region as well as at a corporate level, ensuring a continuous pipeline of new projects, with 10 deals signed to date in 2014. He is also responsible for new business concept creation, another major growth area for the group, and conceived NUO and Resense Spa S.A. (a new spa business which in 2013, just four years after launching, became the world’s fastest growing spa operator).  Semer brings an innovative approach to Kempinski’s corporate social responsibility activities and was a driving force behind the creation of BE Health Association.

Prior to joining Kempinski in 2002 in the development team, Semer studied economics at the University of Würzburg, Germany, while gaining experience with Commerzbank AG in corporate banking in London and Atlanta. He holds an MBA from the prestigious Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland. Semer has been a member of the Management Board of Kempinski AG since 2008.

Kempinski AG’s Management Board members are now: Alejandro Bernabé, CEO, Markus Semer, Deputy CEO, Marcus van der Wal, Chief Operating Officer, and Colin Lubbe, Chief Financial Officer.