Derk Haank, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Springer Nature, will retire from his role as CEO by the end of 2017. Derk will be succeeded by Daniel Ropers, currently CEO of bol.com, who will join Springer Nature on October 1 and work with Derk until December to ensure a smooth transition.
Derk has thirty years of experience in the academic publishing industry, almost half of which have been with Springer. He joined Springer Science+Business Media in 2004 as its CEO and drove the migration of content from print to digital, re-inventing the academic book market in the process. Throughout his career, Derk championed new business models and in 2008, led the acquisition of BioMed Central which together with Springer's own open products led Springer Science+Business Media to become the leading open access publisher in the world.
The culmination of his career was the merger of Springer Science+Business Media with the majority of Macmillan Science and Education in 2015. He became CEO of the newly created Springer Nature and for the past two years led the integration of the businesses to become the world's leading open access publisher, the number one academic book publisher and publisher of the most influential journals.
Daniel Ropers is an experienced CEO with a proven track record of building successful B2C businesses that lead the market. He joins Springer Nature from the digital sector where he co-founded online retailer bol.com in 1999, becoming CEO in 2000. During his 17 years as CEO, Daniel created the leading retail brand in Benelux with a reputation for excellent personalised shopping, reliability and customer service. After two consecutive periods under Private Equity ownership, he steered the sale of bol.com to Benelux based retail group Ahold Delhaize in 2012 and remained its CEO.
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