Corporate Governance

Here you will find information on the Executive Board and Supervisory Board as well as corporate governance statements and declarations of conformity.

The Executive Board Team

The Executive Board Team

We at Bastei Lübbe AG work as a team. Also on the Executive Board. Soheil Dastyari has been our CEO since 2022. Simon Decot is responsible for programming. Sandra Dittert is responsible for marketing, production, legal and contract management, and novel booklets. Joachim Herbst is the Chief Financial Officer.

The Executive Board Team

© Kathrin Menke

Soheil Dastyari

Soheil Dastyari, born in 1972, began his career as a strategic planner at the communications agency Lintas after studying applied cultural studies with a focus on business administration as well as media and communication studies at Leuphana University Lüneburg, before working in various positions in Hamburg, Berlin and New York City at the agency FCB Global from 1999 to 2006, most recently as Managing Director Germany. In 2007, Soheil Dastyari moved to the media company Gruner + Jahr GmbH & Co KG, Hamburg, where he initially headed the brand and innovation development, later the corporate media division, and was finally Managing Director Germany at publishing houses including Capital and the Stern Group. From 2016 to 2021, Soheil Dastyari was the founding CEO of the communications service provider Territory, under whose umbrella the Bertelsmann Group bundled all companies in the content communications sector and restructured them on the market. After leaving Bertelsmann, he worked as a management consultant before becoming CEO of the Issuer from March 2022.

Soheil Dastyari

© Kathrin Menke

Simon Decot

• Born July 14th 1970• Apprenticeship as bookseller at Suhrkamp Verlag (Frankfurt/Main)• Master in General and Comparative Literature and Journalism (Berlin)• 2000 - 2003 Product Manager Fiction at bol.de, then Bertelsmann (Munich)• 2003 – 2004 Product Manager Fiction and Audio Books at Weltbild (Augsburg)• 2004 – 2014 Editorial Director Fiction and Audio Books at Weltbild (Augsburg)• 2014 – 2015 Editorial Director for Narrative Children's and Youth's Books at Ravensburger AG (Ravensburg)• 2015 – 2018 Publishing Director Digital Content and from 2016 also Publishing Director of LYX at Bastei Lübbe AG• 2018 – 2020 Publishing Strategy Director at Bastei Lübbe AG• Since April 2020 member of the Issuer's Executive Board. 

Simon Decot

© Olivier Favre

Sandra Dittert

Sandra Dittert, born in 1969, studied business administration at the University of Frankfurt a.M. She started her professional career in 1996 with the Hamburg located pay-TV channel Premiere in program marketing. She then worked for some 18 years in various management positions at the Holtzbrinck Publishing Group, most recently as Senior Vice President German Trade Publishing, being responsible for sales, marketing and digital business.. During this time she founded the startup lovelybooks.de and, as managing director, successfully developed it into the largest German-language reader and author network. She was a founding and supervisory board member of skoobe, the first eBook subscription model in the German-speaking book market. Since April 2017, Sandra Dittert has been managing director of the Haufe Group, responsible for the professional and journalistic editorial departments, content marketing, content engineering & development, as well as publishing and sales. She developed the digitalization of content products, business models and value-added processes. Since August 2020, Sandra Dittert is a member of the Issuer's Executive Board. She is responsible for the departments of marketing, sales, public relations, production, legal and contract management and novel booklets.

Sandra Dittert

© Olivier Favre

Joachim Herbst

Joachim Herbst, born on 11 December 1965 in Lohr/Main, completed an apprenticeship as a banker at Deutsche Bank AG after graduating from high school and then studied business administration in Würzburg. This was followed by 3 years working for the auditing company Arthur Andersen in Stuttgart, after which he moved to Daimler Benz AG in Stuttgart and later Berlin for another 3 years.From 1999 to 2013, Joachim Herbst worked for the Hamburg-based Ganske Publishing Group, first as a personal assistant to the publisher Thomas Ganske, followed by 6 years as Managing Director of Lesezirkel Daheim-Liefer Service GmbH and 6 years as Commercial Managing Director of Jahreszeiten Verlag GmbH.After interim management for a subsidiary of Cornelsen Verlag and a brief stint at Burda in Offenburg, Joachim Herbst returned to Cornelsen in Berlin in 2015, where he was CFO of Cornelsen Verlag GmbH and CFO of the Cornelsen Group Holding until July 2020.Since August 2020, Joachim Herbst is CFO of the Issuer.

Joachim Herbst

© Olivier Favre

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Our Supervisory Board

Carsten Dentler

Carsten Dentler has been managing partner of Palladio Infrastruktur GmbH since 2019. He has many years of transaction and management experience in the banking and capital markets business. Before joining Palladio Partners, he was responsible for building up and managing the M&A/IPO/DCM advisory business of a leading US investment bank and subsequently a large Swiss investment bank in Germany and Austria. His work spanned more than two decades, including 12 years as a responsible board member, and covered a spectrum of industries. The sectors of energy, chemicals, other energy-intensive activities and the associated critical infrastructure formed a substantive focus.Carsten Dentler began his career at Commerzbank AG with an apprenticeship as a banker. He then studied business administration at the University of Mannheim, graduating with a degree in business administration. His professional stations included Arthur Andersen GmbH, Deutsche Bank AG, Morgan Stanley Bank AG and UBS Deutschland AG.He is a member of several supervisory boards of listed as well as private companies.

Carsten Dentler

© Olivier Favre

Dr. Mirko Caspar

Dr. Mirko Caspar has been managing director at the online optician Mister Spex since 2011 and is responsible for the areas of marketing, product, multi-channel retail and international markets. He studied business at Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster where he subsequently completed his doctorate. His most important professional roles so far have been as a management consultant at McKinsey, senior director for business development at entertainment group Universal Music, managing director of its mail order sister companies, as well as founder and managing partner of virtual world company Metaversum. Furthermore, he has advised numerous digital and traditional companies on their positioning in both existing and new markets.

Dr. Mirko Caspar

© Olivier Favre

Prof. Dr. Friedrich L. Ekey

Prof. Dr. Friedrich L. Ekey completed his training in the Higher Regional Court District of Cologne following his studies in Philosophy and Law. He was employed initially as a lawyer in the District Court and in the Higher Regional Court in Cologne thereafter. He completed his doctorate under Prof. Dr. Karl Heinrich Friauf, Director of the Institute for Constitutional Law at the University of Cologne, on a subject relating to property law. He is senior partner at the firm he founded in Cologne, Ekey & Kollegen, which focuses on general matters of corporate law, and acts as compliance officer in various companies. He teaches at the Rheinische Fachhochschule in Cologne as a professor at the Business and Law faculty and is the editor and author of works on social, competition, cartel and trademark law.

Prof. Dr. Friedrich L. Ekey

© Olivier Favre

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