Kempinski Hotels Appoints Deputy CEO

Kempinski Hotels has appointed Markus Semer as Deputy CEO.

As Deputy CEO, Semer continues in his responsibilities for group development through portfolio and associated business growth, the group’s major growth areas.

Semer was successively given responsibility for strategic planning and corporate affairs, and since 2013, he oversees the group’s development.

Since Semer restructured development, the group is now represented in each region as well as at a corporate level, ensuring a continuous pipeline of new projects, with 10 deals signed to date in 2014.

He is also responsible for new business concept creation, another major growth area for the group, and conceived NUO and Resense Spa S.A. (a new spa business).

Semer has an innovative approach to corporate social responsibility activities, and was a driving force behind the creation of BE Health Association.

Michael D Selby, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Kempinski AG, said that he “recognised Markus Semer’s talent for strategic and structural planning early on, and appointed him to the Management Board back in 2008. We have consistently groomed him with new challenges, which he handled with an entrepreneurial approach each time.”

Prior to joining Kempinski in 2002 in the development team, Semer studied economics at the University of Würzburg, Germany, while gaining experience with Commerzbank AG in corporate banking in London and Atlanta.

He holds an MBA from the prestigious Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.