Our team and culture
We are a team of 500 employees. As entrepreneurs we pursue our ambitious goals – every day. We win as a team: We make decisions together, we celebrate success together, and we learn from our mistakes together. We work hand in hand to fulfill our mission of ensuring customer success. Every team member thinks and acts as an entrepreneur inside the organization. They make customer-centric decisions, implement them quickly and take ownership. They make these decisions in line with the overall company strategy, are proactive and ensure our long-term success.
To empower entrepreneurs our processes and systems are designed to enable independent decision making and support implementation. Our career development programme aims to find, train and develop entrepreneurs so that every individual can be their very best. We support personal progress, by offering a well-developed and individual onboarding programme for new employees. Yearly we spend a full month’s salary on the development of every team member. To further nurture personal development, we offer a variety of internal training workshops that everyone can participate in.
Management board
Photo note: Photo is reserved exclusively for internal use on the website www.vnrag.de. No further publication is agreed to.
Richard Rentrop
CEO
Richard has been management director of the publishing group since 2017. As a pioneer and go-getter, he initiated a change process in the company. Since then, our business orientation and corporate culture have developed at a rapid pace. Richard is known for his hands-on mentality and dedication to be a part of every team.
Waldemar Lokotsch
CFO
As the head of finance and accounting, controlling and planning, personnel administration and our legal department, he is our expert at numbers. In his 20 years of the VNR Group he has shared his expertise and has made a significant contribution to our success story. Hardly anyone knows our publishing group the way he does.
Michael Schrader
COO
With platform X, Michael leads the largest unit in our publishing group, which includes Marketing & Sales, IT & Data and Fulfillment & Customer Service. He built platform X with passion and professional know-how at every step of the way, thus setting a milestone in our strategic development. He supports his teams with valuable advice, an action-oriented mindset, and empathy.
Norman Rentrop
Supervisory board
In 1975, at the age of 18, Norman Rentrop founded the VNR Group in his hometown, Bonn-Bad Godesberg, and launched our unique journey with the first product, “Die Geschäftsidee” (English: How to start your business). Norman Rentrop has always pursued the mission of supporting our customers to become more and more successful in their personal as well as professional lives. This mission is the focus of our actions to this day. Under his leadership, the company grew steadily with countless milestones. Since 1999, Norman Rentrop has been active as chairman of the supervisory board.
Friedhelm Rentrop (1929–2015)
Obituary: Honorary member of the Supervisory Board
As a member of the supervisory board from 1999 to 2004, Friedhelm Rentrop, used his specialist knowledge to ensure the success of the publishing group. Afterwards, he continued supporting the publishing group as an honorary member of the supervisory board. He was active in local politics in Bonn for 20 years, and was a member of the German Parliament from 1980 to 1983. In addition, he was an expert in international tax law, especially German-British and German-American tax law, and was on the board of the German Association of Tax Advisors and Consultants for over 25 years.
Do you also want to be an entrepreneur in the company and continue our success story with us? You can find our current vacancies here.