All of the board members of the German Promotional Products Association GWW have stepped down except for Ronald Eckert and Tobias Köckert, as the association announced in a newsletter to its members on April 17, 2023. Up until now the board that was elected at the general annual meeting in Wiesbaden on September 26, 2022 comprised of the new Chairman, Steven Baumgaertner (Cybergroup), the two also newly appointed board members Gunther Langenberg (WIL) and Ingo Malinowski (Quadro) as well as the two in September re-elected board members Ronald Eckert (Döbler Werbemittel) and Frank Jansen (Niederegger). Jansen already resigned from his office on the GWW board earlier this March due to differing opinions on the cooperation, he was succeeded by Köckert (Mahlwerck) per co-optation. Due to the recent occurrences, new elections are to be held at an extraordinary general meeting that is to be scheduled shortly.
According to the GWW, Baumgaertner had already announced during an executive and advisory board meeting at the end of March that he would be stepping down immediately due to irreconcilable differences of opinion and varying views on the further alignment of the association and also regarding the cooperation difficulties with the remaining members of the GWW management. On April 7, Köckert informed the board that in line with the wishes of the GWW members, Baumgaertner wanted to take over the chair again.
Based on the estimation of the lawyer Kai Koschorreck, the board discussed the possibility of Baumgaertner reoccupying the position of Chairman at a meeting held on April 11. Koschorreck stated that as well as new elections it was also conceivable for Baumgaertner to be appointed to the board per co-optation. However, the board member Langenberg decided not to hold a vote on these two options due to legal concerns. On the same day, Langenberg and Malinowski stepped down from the board. According to the GWW, this was because they didn’t want to continue being responsible for the turmoil caused and decided instead to pave the way for new elections, so that the association could return to its day-to-day business. On April 12, the GWW ultimately revised the legal estimation of Koschorreck with regards to the co-optation. The re-election per co-optation of a board member, who had previously resigned, did not comply with the current articles of association.
“After six months of working together it has become clear that each of the individual members of the board brings added value to the association, but that unfortunately we did not grow together as a team in the way we had hoped,” is how the GWW summed the situation up. “In order to create a stable basis for the association, we have decided to call an extraordinary general meeting at which new board elections will be held. The date will announced soon. Until then, the current board members in office, Ronald Eckert and Tobias Köckert, will carry on the work.” The association aim is to sail back into calmer waters and work together expediently as a team using transparent means of communication.
