Rheinische Post

Karl Arnold was one of the founders of the CDU, served as Lord Mayor of Düsseldorf at the time, and later became the first freely elected Minister-President of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1947 to 1956. He stood for a Christian, trade union-oriented, and democratic new beginning.

Anton Betz was a German journalist, publisher, and publicist who served as the principal license holder and a defining integrative figure for the newspaper. He was also politically engaged and was among the founders of the CDU in the Rhineland.

Erich Wenderoth was a lawyer who engaged on behalf of persecuted individuals during the Hitler regime. His motivation for founding Rheinische Post was to "create a new free newspaper that accompanies, promotes, and strengthens democratic reconstruction." He was a jurist, committed Protestant Christian, and lawyer whose motivation for co-founding the newspaper was to establish an economically independent and free press.

Johannes Werle, born 1967, is CEO. Werle began his media career in 1993 in Central Corporate Development at Bertelsmann AG and moved to France in 1997, joining Gruner + Jahr in Paris. In 2007, he relocated within the Bertelsmann Group to Vienna and assumed the CEO position at publishing group NEWS.
Werle joined Rheinische Post Mediengruppe as managing director in 2012. In 2017, he became deputy CEO, and since 2018 has served as CEO, with responsibility for daily newspapers in North Rhine-Westphalia, advertising publications in North Rhine-Westphalia, radio, digital, trade publications, the Saarbrücken newspaper group, and publishing operations.

Moritz Döbler, born 1965 in Wuppertal as the youngest son of writer Hannsferdinand Döbler, has been editor-in-chief of Rheinische Post since January 1, 2020. Previously, following his training at the Hamburg School of Journalism Henri-Nannen-Schule, he worked at Berlin's Tagesspiegel (where he became managing editor in 2013) and as editor-in-chief at Bremer Weser-Kurier.
He is also active as a jury member of the Wächterpreis der deutschen Tagespresse (Guardian Prize for the German Daily Press), chairman of the "Bonn Institute" (promoting solution-oriented journalism), and deputy spokesperson of the German Press Council.
He has received the Mitteldeutscher Journalistenpreis (Central German Journalism Prize) and the Ernst-Schneider-Medienpreis (Ernst Schneider Media Prize).

Hans Peter Bork, born in 1967, has been Managing Director of the Rheinische Post Media Group since June 2011, responsible for real estate, finance, taxes, controlling, legal affairs, M&A, auditing, IT, human resources, procurement, as well as internal and property management. He began his career in 1993 at BDO Deutsche Warentreuhand AG (Düsseldorf) and in 2007 moved to Deloitte & Touche GmbH (Düsseldorf) as a partner in auditing.

Matthias Körner, born 1971, became managing director of Rheinische Post Verlagsgesellschaft mbH (Düsseldorf) in 2019, where he is responsible for all market activities of Rheinische Post. These include distribution, advertising, content marketing, CRM, and events, as well as publishing marketing. Following apprenticeships at Axel Springer and Bauer Media Group, he became managing director of rtv media group (arvato/Bertelsmann AG). Subsequently, Körner served as managing director of Funke Mediengruppe's North Rhine-Westphalia operations (Essen).

Thomas Marx has been managing director and head of publishing operations of Rheinische Post Mediengruppe since July 1, 2021. Since 2019, Marx had served as managing director of Saarbrücker Zeitungsgruppe, which is majority-owned by Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, responsible for logistics, pre-press, and printing. According to Johannes Werle, CEO of Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, this unified leadership is expected to achieve "acceleration of digital transformation, increased efficiency, and elimination of duplicate structures."