q.beyond appoints Thies Rixen to Management Board as COO

• Thies Rixen has headed the fast-growing cloud business since 2019
• Proprietary Competence Center strengthens partnerships with major public cloud providers
• Expansion and development of near-shoring locations boosts effectiveness of operations and profitability

Cologne, 19 September 2022 – The Supervisory Board of the IT service provider q.beyond is appointing Thies Rixen (50) as a member of the company’s Management Board as of 1 October 2022. The experienced IT manager joined q.beyond in 2019 and in subsequent years managed the cloud solutions business and later the company’s sales activities as well. Under his management, the cloud business has become the key driver of the company’s growth. Revenues in this business field grew year-on-year by 18% to € 33.8 million in the second quarter of 2022.

Thies Rixen to be responsible within Management Board for operations and sales

Dr. Bernd Schlobohm, the Chairman of q.beyond’s Supervisory Board explains: “Thies Rixen has performed outstanding work in recent years, modernised IT operations and opened up new and profitable growth perspectives for the company. It therefore makes absolute sense to appoint him now to the Management Board.” In his new function, Thies Rixen will be responsible for operations and sales. He will thus also free up time for Jürgen Hermann, currently the only member of the Management Board and CEO, who will now be able to focus even more closely on the topics of strategy, communications and M&A.

A graduate in business administration, Thies Rixen has gained extensive management and industry expertise in the 20 plus years he has worked in the IT sector. Previous posts in his career include CIO and Managing Director at Ingenico Group, leading positions at DXC and most recently Executive Vice President at Deutsche Telekom until 2019. At q.beyond, he drew on this expertise in particular to systematically expand the company’s competence in the field of hybrid cloud. Among other developments, this gave rise to a Cloud Competence Center with more than 150 specialists. Here, the company pools all its public and private cloud expertise, maintains partnerships with major public cloud providers and ensures that q.beyond can select and operate the right cloud figuration for each individual customer.

New subsidiary in Andalusia/Spain

This hybrid cloud expertise is creating new and profitable growth opportunities. The establishment of near-shoring locations, a process also largely initiated by Thies Rixen, is helping to increase the company’s profitability. q.beyond has operated a branch in Riga/Latvia since 2020 and is now establishing a further location in Andalusia/Spain. This will be charged in particular with supporting growth in the company’s application business. Given these developments, the new member of q.beyond’s Management Board believes that the company is well positioned to achieve the profitable growth budgeted for the coming years. “Together with Jürgen Hermann, I will press ahead with positioning our company as the IT provider of choice to accompany SMEs in Germany through their digital transformation. Here, we will benefit just as much from our hybrid cloud competence as from our expertise in overcoming existing hurdles on this journey by working with internally developed and customary market applications.”

q.beyond’s CEO Jürgen Hermann is looking forward to working with Thies Rixen: “What I really appreciate about Thies, alongside his specialist expertise, is his entrepreneurial approach, his business sense and his great loyalty. In his new role, he will make a decisive contribution to ensuring that our company generates profitable growth even in the current challenging conditions.”

About q.beyond AG:
q.beyond AG is the key to successful digitalisation. We help our customers find the best digital solutions for their business and then put them into practice. Our strong team of 1,100 people accompanies SME customers securely and reliably throughout their digital journey. We are experts in Cloud, SAP and SaaS. With nationwide locations and its own certified data centres, q.beyond is one of Germany’s leading IT service providers.

Contact:
q.beyond AG
Arne Thull
Head of Investor Relations/Mergers & Acquisitions
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