Mandy Best to be mecom’s new Managing Director, forming a dual leadership with Alexander Feldmann
dpa restructures mecom’s management. As of June 1, Mandy Best (46) will join the incumbent Managing Director Alexander Feldmann (53) to form a dual leadership.
Mandy Best succeeds Barbara Bliefert (64), who is taking well-deserved retirement.
mecom Medien-Communikationsgesellschaft mbH specialises in the secure and reliable transmission of sensitive data for professional applications. The majority shareholder of the Hamburg-based company is dpa. The other stakes in the company, each equal in size, are held by four other news agencies.
“In Mandy Best, we have found the ideal person for mecom. She will continue the successful growth story together with Alexander Feldmann,” stated dpa’s CEO Peter Kropsch. “At the same time, I want to thank Barbara Bliefert, who is retiring after 22 years of working for dpa Group, out of which she served eleven years as a Managing Director at mecom. During this time, Barbara Bliefert has provided significant impetus for the company and successfully transformed mecom,” Peter Kropsch added.
“l’m looking forward to collaborating with Mandy Best. mecom will benefit from her expertise in product and project management in numerous growth areas,” said mecom Managing Director Alexander Feldmann. “I am sure that we’ll achieve a lot together.”
Mandy Best joins dpa from A. Stein`sche Mediengruppe GmbH in Werl, where she was in charge of product and project management. From 2007 until 2016, Mandy Best worked for Axel Springer in Berlin and Hamburg, serving, among other positions, as a Senior IT Project Manager and Speaker of the CIO. This was followed by engagements at Safebridge GmbH and ims Internationaler Medienservice GmbH & Co.KG. Mandy Best studied Business Informatics at the Elmshorn University of Applied Sciences.
About mecom:
mecom Medien-Communikations-Gesellschaft mbH (mecom for short) with headquarters in Hamburg was founded in 1989 and is a joint venture of the news agencies dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH, dpa-AFX Wirtschaftsnachrichten GmbH, KNA Katholische Nachrichten-Agentur GmbH, GEP Gemeinschaftswerk der Evangelischen Publizistik gGmbH with epd and AFP Agence France-Presse GmbH. dpa is the major shareholder and holds a 50 per cent stake in mecom. As a modern IT services provider, mecom designs and operates innovative and customised solutions for professional communication applications. This includes, in particular, the reliable transmission of sensitive data via satellite in broadcast mode or via web technology. mecom develops and operates the Modular Warning System (MoWaS) for the Federal Republic of Germany. MoWaS enables federal, state, county and city governments to disseminate official alerts at any time through newsrooms, alerting apps and many other channels.
About dpa:
The German Press Agency (dpa) was founded in 1949 and is one of the world’s leading independent news agencies. dpa supplies media outlets, companies and organisations with editorial content. As an international agency, dpa reports in seven languages. Approximately 1,000 journalists work for dpa from around 150 locations in Germany and abroad. dpa’s shareholders are 177 German media outlets. The agency’s editorial office works according to the principles laid down in dpa’s statute: independent of world views, business or governments. The central editorial office, headed by Editor-in-Chief Sven Gösmann, is located in Berlin. The Executive Board around its Chairman Peter Kropsch is based at the company’s headquarters in Hamburg. The Chairman of the Supervisory Board is David Brandstätter (Main-Post GmbH, Würzburg).
