KOELNMESSE - Key Persons
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- Member of the Supervisory Board
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- Member of Cologne City Council
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- Member of Cologne City Council / Teacher
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- Member of Cologne City Council / Director Customer Relation Management
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- Member of Cologne City Council / Lawyer
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- Department Head Within the Ministry of Economic Affairs, Industry, Climate Action and Energy of the State of North Rhine - Westphalia
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- Finance and Sustainability ( University of Groningen )
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- President of Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry ( IHK Köln )
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- Consultant for Strategy and IT Projects
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- Chief Executive Officer
- Member of the Management Team
- President
Gerald Böse, Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse, can look back on more than 30 years of experience in the international trade fair business.
Gerald Böse was born in Munich in 1962. After studying business administration at Munich University of Applied Sciences, he started his career in the trade fair business in 1989 as a trainee at the Messe München trade fair company. As a member of the administration team and project manager there, he got to know the trade fair business in all its facets, including trade fair marketing and services, international activities and conference management. He came in contact with the fashion business as head of the MOC Veranstaltungscenter München project group.
In 1992, he moved to the IGEDO Company in Düsseldorf as assistant to the management. Until 2005, as Managing Director, he was responsible for the rescheduling and the international activities of the subsidiaries in Italy, China and Great Britain. In addition to fashion, he established new trade fair themes there, such as OMD (Online Marketing Düsseldorf), which would eventually become the leading trade fair for the industry in Düsseldorf for years.
In 2005, Gerald Böse became the Speaker of the Management Board of Karlsruher Messe- und Kongress GmbH and joined the Management Board of Neue Messe Karlsruhe.
Since 1 March 2008, Gerald Böse has been CEO of Koelnmesse GmbH in Cologne. In 2010, he initiated a comprehensive efficiency programme and radical reorganisation. Under his leadership, the company has grown continuously since overcoming the global financial and economic crisis. In 2019, Koelnmesse achieved the largest turnover and some of the highest profits in its history to date.
The company is focused on internationalisation, driving new business models through the digital transformation process and constant development of established trade fairs and core thematic competencies. In Cologne, Gerald Böse stands up for the integration of trade fair themes into the city and region as well as joint destination marketing aimed at promoting the location as a venue for trade fairs, conventions and business. By 2034, Cologne will boast one of the world's most attractive exhibition centres. Its creation is being managed under the Koelnmesse 3.0 programme, which encompasses investments of more than 700 million euro.
In June 2008, Böse was elected to the Board of Directors of the Association of the German Trade Fair Industry (AUMA). Since December 2009, he has had a seat on the General Assembly of Cologne Chamber of Commerce and Industry and is today chairman of the International Affairs Committee there. In June 2010, he was elected to the executive body of the German-Swiss Chamber of Commerce. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of TÜV Rheinland Berlin Brandenburg Pfalz e.V. since 2020. Gerald Böse is a Member of the Board of Directors of the UFI (The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry). In 2021, he was appointed to the advisory board of KölnBusiness Wirtschaftsförderung (Business Development).
Gerald Böse is married and has two sons.
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- Director Beteiligungsverwaltungsgesellschaft Within Ministry of Finance of the State of North Rhine - Westphalia
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- Member of the Supervisory Board
- Mayor of the City of Cologne / Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board
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- Employee Representative Koelnmesse GmbH / Director PolisMOBILITY, the TIRE COLOGNE
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- Visitor Manager Art Fairs
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- Member of the Supervisory Board
- Member of Cologne City Council
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- Employee Representative Koelnmesse GmbH / Director Anuga FoodTec, Cibus Tec
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- Chief Operating Officer
- Member of the Management Team
Oliver Frese has been the Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Koelnmesse GmbH since 2020 and is responsible for the company's global trade fair and event portfolio.
Having received his degree in social science, he began his career in 1995 as assistant to the management of the medium-sized company Richard Kühn/Perfekta Dienstleistungen GmbH in Burgwedel near Hanover.
In 1997 he joined DeTe Immobilien und Service GmbH, a Deutsche Telekom AG subsidiary in Hanover, and was appointed Head of Marketing and Internal Sales in 1998.
From 2000 to 2004, Oliver Frese worked as Marketing Manager for the Baden-Württemberg energy supply company EnBW in Hanover and Stuttgart, before joining Deutsche Messe AG in Hanover in 2004. In 2013 he was appointed to the Board of Management of Deutsche Messe AG.
Frese then worked as an independent management consultant in 2019 before being appointed to the Executive Board of Koelnmesse GmbH in 2020.
As Chief Operating Officer, he holds global portfolio responsibility for over 80 events in Cologne and key markets around the world. These include numerous leading world trade fairs with over 50,000 exhibiting companies and visitors from 200 countries annually.
He also serves as head of the company's Services, Sales and Marketing and Communications departments as well as Technical Event Organisation.
From the moment he took office, Oliver Frese has been dedicated to digitalisation of the Cologne trade fair company, which received a particular boost from the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. As part of this effort, Frese drove the development of digital platforms, which resulted in digital value creation models that will be consistently expanded even after the pandemic.
With a clear vision for customer-centric event organisation, he has equipped the market-facing Sales, Services and Marketing & Communications departments with a new operating model to better align marketing and sales messages while consistently focussing all activities on customers' individual needs.
Oliver Frese has two grown children and lives with his partner in Cologne.
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- Employee Representative Koelnmesse GmbH / Sales Manager and Member of the Works Council
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- Member of Cologne City Council
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- Member of Cologne City Council / Lawyer and Specialist Lawyer for Employment Law