Rolf Eberhard Buch (born 2 April 1965) is a German business executive. In 2013, he was appointed

CEO A chief executive officer (CEO), also known as a chief executive or managing director, is the top-ranking corporate officer charged with the management of an organization, usually a company or a nonprofit organization. CEOs find roles in variou ...

of the real estate company Deutsche Annington, which, following the takeover of GAGFAH in the year 2015, was renamed

Vonovia Vonovia is a European multinational real estate company based in Bochum, North Rhine-Westphalia. Its history goes back to Deutsche Annington, which merged with GAGFAH and was subsequently renamed Vonovia. The company currently owns around 5 ...

. Previously, Buch held an executive position at

Arvato The Arvato Group is a global services company headquartered in Gütersloh, Germany. Its services include customer support, information technology, logistics, and finance. The history of Arvato goes back to the printing and industry services divi ...

Early life and education

Buch was born in

Weidenau Weidenau is a suburban part (Stadtteil) of the city Siegen in Germany. Weidenau, a northern part of Siegen, shares borders with Niedersetzen in the north, Geisweid in the north-west, the central part of Siegen in the south, Birlenbach (Siegen), ...

near

Siegen Siegen () is a List of cities and towns in Germany, city in Germany, in the south Westphalian part of North Rhine-Westphalia. It is located in the district of Siegen-Wittgenstein in the Arnsberg (region), Arnsberg region. The university town (n ...

. At age three, his family moved to the

Kettwig Kettwig is the southernmost borough of the city of Essen in western Germany and, until 1975, was a town in its own right. Kettwig is situated next to the Ruhr river, at a median height of 53 metres above sea level. It is the most recently incorp ...

district in the city of

Essen Essen () is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and Dortmund, as well as ...

. After completing his secondary education ("

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen year ...

"), Buch studied

mechanical engineering Mechanical engineering is the study of physical machines and mechanism (engineering), mechanisms that may involve force and movement. It is an engineering branch that combines engineering physics and engineering mathematics, mathematics principl ...

and

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

at the

RWTH Aachen University RWTH Aachen University (), in German ''Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen'', is a German public research university located in Aachen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. With more than 47,000 students enrolled in 144 study prog ...

and received his

engineering degree An engineer's degree is an advanced academic degree in engineering which is conferred in Europe, some countries of Asia and Latin America, North Africa and a few institutions in the United States. The degree may require a thesis but always require ...

in 1990.

Career

Bertelsmann

in 1991, Buch began his career in the print and industrial division of

Bertelsmann The Bertelsmann SE & Co. KGaA, commonly known as Bertelsmann (), is a German privately held company, private multinational corporation, multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate corporation based in Gütersloh, North Rhine-Westphalia, ...

, which was later renamed Arvato. After serving in various positions in sales and marketing of domestic and foreign subsidiaries, he became a member of the executive board of Arvato in 2002. Under his leadership, the international services business grew into a key revenue and profit generator. In 2008, Buch succeeded Ostrowski as CEO of Arvato and also took up duties as a member of the Bertelsmann executive board. In this position, he promoted business involving services for cities and communities. Moreover, he increasingly invested in digital services to prepare Arvato for the

digital transformation Digital transformation (DT) is the process of adoption and implementation of digital technology by an organization in order to create new or modify existing products, services and operations by the means of translating business processes into a d ...

. At the end of 2012, Buch stepped down from the Arvato executive board upon his own wishes and left the group.

Vonovia

In 2013, the real estate company Deutsche Annington announced Buch's appointment as CEO. He took the company public, expanding the property portfolio through acquisitions. With the takeover of competitor GAGFAH in the year 2015, he created Germany's largest real estate group. Under the new name of Vonovia, the company was later listed in the

DAX The DAX (''Deutscher Aktienindex'' (German stock index); ) is a stock market index consisting of the 40 major German blue chip companies trading on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange. It is a total return index. Prices are taken from the Xetra t ...

blue-chip index.

Other activities

Corporate boards

Until May 2009, Buch was member of the supervisory board of the internet service provider

Lycos Europe Lycos Europe was a pan-European network of websites, offering services including communication tools, online communities, web search, e-commerce, web hosting, homepage building and Internet access. It was an independent corporation, sharing no c ...

. Besides, in 2017 and 2018, he was on the board of directors of the Swedish real estate company . To date, Buch serves on the supervisory board of the Gesellschaft zur Sicherung von Bergmannswohnungen (GSB) and is an active member of the board of trustees of Sparkasse Gütersloh's Woldemar Winkler Stiftung foundation.

Non-profit organizations

Trilateral Commission The Trilateral Commission is a nongovernmental international organization aimed at fostering closer cooperation between Japan, Western Europe and North America. It was founded in July 1973, principally by American banker and philanthropist David ...

, Member of the European Group

Personal life

Buch lives with his wife and two children in

Gütersloh Gütersloh () is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the region of Ostwestfalen-Lippe and the administrative region of Detmold (administrative region), Detmold. Gütersloh is the administrative centre for a Gütersloh (distric ...

References

External links

Executive Board
of Vonovia {{DEFAULTSORT:Buch, Rolf Eberhard RWTH Aachen University alumni German businesspeople in real estate 1965 births Living people German chief executives 20th-century German businesspeople 21st-century German businesspeople People from Siegen