Biography | Friedrich Joussen — The Hanover Block Where He Took the TUI Chair

On 13 February 2013 Friedrich Joussen became chairman of the executive board of TUI AG.

The appointment had been set the previous summer.

On 30 July 2012 an extraordinary meeting of TUI's supervisory board named him to the management board from 15 October 2012.

The same ad-hoc release said he would take the chair after the annual general meeting on 13 February 2013, when Michael Frenzel left at his own request.

Frenzel had run the company for nineteen years.

TUI's own 2012/13 financial statements later recorded the same hand-over at the close of that meeting.

Joussen walked into a Hanover headquarters that still sat at Karl-Wiechert-Allee 4.

The building, known inside the group as KWA4, was the public address of TUI AG when he took the chair.

The company later shifted some functions along the same avenue.

The job in front of him was not a quiet succession.

TUI AG in Germany and TUI Travel in London were still two listed companies.

A first attempt to combine them had already failed on price.

Within two years he would stand at the London Stock Exchange for the completed merger.

He was forty-nine.

The pin is the KWA4 block on Karl-Wiechert-Allee, a public corporate headquarters, not a home.

The date is the AGM day recorded in TUI's own 30 July 2012 release: 13 February 2013.

Photo: Christoph Wilhelms, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons