At its meeting in March the Koenig & Bauer AG (KBA) supervisory board approved a change to the executive board. Following a highly successful tenure, Walter Schumacher (49), executive vice-president for web press sales, marketing and service since 1 January 1999, will step down by mutual agreement on 30 April to pursue his personal roadmap. He will be succeeded by Christoph Müller (45) with effect from 1 May. After taking an apprenticeship in printing and a degree course in process technology and industrial engineering Walter Schumacher worked in the international textile machinery business before leaving the senior management team at Eduard Küsters Maschinenfabrik in Krefeld to join Koenig & Bauer AG on 1 November 1998. On 1 January 1999 he succeeded Burkard Roos as vice president for web press sales and marketing following the latter’s retirement. Walter Schumacher’s remit was later extended to include after-sales service. He has been instrumental in expanding KBA’s strong position in the German and European newspaper market and significantly increasing the group’s market share in Asia and Australia with a number of major projects which consolidated KBA’s position as one of the world’s top two press manufacturers. His successor, Christoph Müller, was born in 1961 and has two sons. After joining Albert-Frankenthal (now part of KBA) he studied at the Polytechnic University in Mannheim, gaining a degree in 1987. Christoph Müller initially worked in sales support and marketing at the Frankenthal plant, rising to the position of department manager. In 1995 he transferred to the commercial web offset and publication rotogravure sales department, and was appointed area manager and, later director. During the past seven years he and his team have achieved outstanding success in both domestic and foreign markets, enabling KBA to reinforce its position as global market leader in publication rotogravure. Industrial users are the main customers in this sector. Although Christoph Müller gained most of his sales and project management expertise in publication rotogravure and web offset, he is familiar with the newspaper business – and many of its leading lights – from his earlier activities for Albert-Frankenthal, which built newspaper presses until the early 1990s. He will now have the opportunity to apply his expertise in KBA’s newspaper division.