The APG|SGA Management Board is restructuring and expanding its digitalisation capacities

Under its market strategy, APG|SGA is making a long-term investment in its performance capability. Its goal is to safeguard its position as market leader in the analogue and digital out of home media market for the long term in a changing environment. To reflect the increasing significance of IT, data and AdTech, the company has decided to create the position of CITO (Chief Information & Technology Officer) at the Management Board level, to be filled by Dr Dominik Franke. Dominik Franke (born 1984) holds a PhD in Computer Science and has 15 years’ experience in a range of roles in the areas of IT, digitalisation and digital product development, and has a profound understanding of innovation and strategy. Following his studies at RWTH Aachen, where he received his doctorate, he has been a founder and consultant and, in the last 10 years, has held management positions at Tchibo and V-Zug.

In his new role, Dr Dominik Franke will assume responsibility for IT (development, operations, data science, business analysis & process management, IT security). He will also oversee ongoing development of e-commerce and programmatic platforms as well as mobile solutions (aymo), which were developed by the Marketing & Innovation division and previously fell within the remit of Beat Holenstein.

Effective 1 September 2023, Beat Holenstein will take over the partner market business, previously headed by Christian Gotter, alongside his existing marketing functions. The partner market business encompasses integrated, national responsibility for city authorities, transport companies, airports, mountain destinations, shopping centres and private property owners as well as advertising inventory procurement. The new Marketing & Partner Market division will be the APG|SGA hub for media research, marketing communications, programmatic and mobile sales, as well as product management and systematic tracking of new business.

As head of the Logistics & Operations division, Christian Gotter will return to focusing on the core functions of logistics and order processing, along with management of the 200 or so employees in this area.  

Beat Hermann, Group CFO, will pass responsibility for IT over to Dr Dominik Franke effective 1 September 2023. The search for a successor to Beat Hermann is under way.

Additional information about Dr Dominik Franke (career history)
Effective 1 September 2023, Dominik Franke will join the Management Board in the new position of Chief Information & Technology Officer. He will assume responsibility for the areas of IT (development, operations, data science, business analysis & process management, IT security) and digital product development (e-commerce, programmatic platforms and mobile solutions such as “aymo”). Prior to joining APG, he was at V-ZUG since 2019, where he built up the Digital Products & Services and oversaw global digital products. Prior to 2019 he held a number of different positions at Tchibo as well as its subsidiaries and affiliates. This included responsibility for establishing and managing digital product development for smart coffee machines (Qbo) in Zurich and global IT management for Tchibo Coffee Service in Hamburg. Before becoming a line manager, he was responsible for the Mobile Applications & Internet of Things competence centre as a management consultant for ComConsult. He was still in the midst of his doctoral studies at RWTH Aachen when he launched his career by founding the research-related spin-off Embility. He holds an MA and PhD in Computer Science (RWTH Aachen and University of Limerick) with specialisations in psychology (2009) and economics (2011). His extensive further qualifications include certification in the areas of ITSM/ITIL (2014) and the Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) (2022).