New marketing director for De Gruyter

Ralf Grümme is to take over as De Gruyter's director of marketing, replacing Christine Woll, who is leaving the company. Grümme, who has a degree in business, will be joining De Gruyter from the German schoolbook publisher Cornelsen Schulverlage, where he has been the head of the e-commerce department since 2008.

After working as an M&A consultant at Arthur Andersen and Ernst & Young, Grümme acquired expertise over a period of years in the development and realisation of marketing strategies – particularly for the online environment – while employed at several companies, including Gegenbauer Holding, a provider of facility management services, and Kiddinx Entertainment, a distribution company for children's entertainment media.

In his seven years as the head of the e-commerce department, Grümme was responsible for the strategic positioning of Cornelson.de, which offers some 50,000 products, as well as for the strategic management of the other brand websites of the Cornelsen education group.

'We're very pleased to have acquired an innovative marketing expert with extensive online marketing know-how, as well as experience in the publishing industry,' said Ben Ashcroft, De Gruyter's vice president of sales and marketing.

'We're firmly convinced that under his leadership our marketing team will continue to implement creative digital communication strategies that are optimised for our target audiences.'