Bernhard Düttmann holds a PhD in Business Administration and has about 30 years of experience in the chemical industry, the consumer goods industry and most recently in retail. With 16 years of board membership in international corporations, he is an experienced leader and has broad expertise restructuring, including the associated change processes in corporate culture.
Bernhard’s specialization as CFO, his broad experience in sales and marketing as well as his extensive international experience nurture a deep understanding for his clients’ needs, which allows Bernhard to put himself in their shoes quickly and thus cater to their needs effectively. For him, it’s not about prescribing a direction, but rather about reflecting on the situation in discussion with the client and jointly identifying approaches that meet the needs of the client and his company alike.
After completing his studies and PhD, Bernhard began his career at Beiersdorf AG (Nivea, Hansaplast, tesa) in Hamburg. He held positions in controlling, sales and marketing before being transferred to Singapore in 1995 as a commercial manager of a joint venture for the Asian adhesive tape business. Back in Hamburg, he took over the project management for the tesa division’s spin-off into a stock corporation in 1999 as tesa divisional controller and became its first CFO in 2001. In 2004, he was also assigned responsibility for the tesa consumer business. In 2006, he became CFO of Beiersdorf AG. In this position, he was responsible for managing the Latin American business, most recently also for HR.
In 2011, Bernhard joined Lanxess in Leverkusen as CFO. At the same time, he took on his first supervisory board mandate at GFK SE, where he was also active in the audit committee, most recently as its head. Since 2015, Bernhard has been self-employed. Over the years, he has been active in the supervisory boards and audit committees of Alstria Office Reit AG, Ceconomy AG and Vossloh AG. In addition to his supervisory board activities, in which he sees himself as a sparring partner for the management board, especially in strategic issues, he also focuses on consulting in advisory boards of medium- sized and start-up companies. Since 2015, he has been providing pro bono support for a practical seminar for master’s students at the WISO Faculty of the University of Cologne. In 2017, he took over the CFO position in the takeover process of STADA Arzneimittel AG on an interim basis. From the supervisory board of Ceconomy AG (Media Saturn), he was delegated to the executive board as CFO on an interim basis. In October 2019, he was once again appointed to the executive board of Ceconomy AG as CEO for 2 years, during which time he was able to resolve the conflict with the minority shareholder in MediaSaturn GmbH that had been going on for years, as a result of which Ceconomy AG is now the sole owner of the retail chain.
Bernhard has been married for 29 years and has three grown-up children. In addition to reading and gardening, his interests include mountain hiking in particular. Furthermore, he invests in start-ups in order to support and advise young founders beyond the product focus in shaping a new company.