Board of Directors

Stephan Zoll is the Chief Executive Officer of SIGNA Sports United (SSU) and the Executive Director of the Board of Directors. He joined SSU in 2018. Stephan was the President Online at Sears Holdings, a multichannel retailer, from 2016 to 2017; he worked at eBay from 2007, a NASDAQ listed online marketplace, latterly as the Vice President and General Manager for Germany. Stephan started his career as a management consultant at Booz Allen & Hamilton and later at Oliver Wyman, which he left as a Partner in 2007. Stephan is a qualified lawyer. He has a law degree from Ludwig-Maximilian’s University in Munich, a PhD from the University of Augsburg, and completed the Executive Leadership course at Harvard Business School.

Mike Özkan has been a member of the Board of Directors of SSU and Chairman of the Operating Committee since 2018. He became Chairman of the Board of Directors after the company’s listing on the NYSE in 2021. Mike is also a member of the Management Board of SIGNA Retail Selection AG. He began his career at UBS Switzerland and was promoted to Associate Director in 2009. He served as Authorized Officer at DZ Private Bank, from 2011 to 2016, he where he acted as a financial advisor. He has an advanced federal diploma of higher education and a Master of Law (LLM) in International Business Law from Zurich University.

Wolfram Keil has been a Member of the SIGNA Executive Board and Managing Director of SIGNA Retail since 2013. He is currently also a member of the Board of Directors of SSU. He previously worked as the Chief Financial Officer of SIGNA RECAP Funds. Wolfram began his professional career in financial management at Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola. He gained experience in the private equity and real estate businesses at Cerberus Capital Management and Terra Firma Capital Partners. He has a master’s degree in business management and economics from Ruhr-University Bochum. He is an experienced board director, chairing various supervisory boards of SIGNA portfolio companies.

Dieter Berninghaus has been the Chairman of the SIGNA Group Executive Board and Chairman of SIGNA Retail since 2016. Following the acquisition of the Selfridges Group in 2022, he is also the co-chairman of the group. Prior to joining SIGNA, he was a member of the Executive Board and CEO Retail of the Swiss Migros Group, Switzerland’s largest retailer. During his time at Migros, he was responsible for the retail business and managed and chaired 15 companies. He also worked for Denner AG/Rast Holding AG as a member of the Board of Directors and subsequently as Chairman of the Board of Directors. Before that he spent six years at REWE Group as Member of the Executive Board, CEO and Spokesperson. He began his career at Metro AG where he was responsible, in his latter role as Director, for the group’s internationalisation and corporate strategy. He is also a lecturer on digital transformation and business innovation at St. Gallen University and a member of the Advisory Board of the Economics Department at Zurich University. He also holds several other advisory board positions. He graduated in business administration and received his doctorate from the Cologne University in 1990.

Martin Wittig is a member of the Board of Directors of SSU. He had a long career at Roland Berger Strategy Consultants, joining the organisation in 1999 as an Associate Partner, then Partner in 2000 before becoming Acting Managing Partner and Director. He then moved into the role of Chief Financial Officer, followed by Chief Executive Officer in 2010. He left Roland Berger in 2013. He gives lectures at the University of St. Gallen on a regular basis and has been appointed Honorary Consul of Germany for the nation of Switzerland (Canton of Schwyz and Canton of Zurich). He graduated from RHTW Aachen and holds a degree in mining engineering and in economics. He gained his doctorate degree in mining engineering from the Technical University of Berlin in 1995.

Christoph Keese is a member of the Board of Directors at SSU. He started his professional career as Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer and Head of Corporate Communications of Gruner + Jahr, the Bertelsmann magazine division. He was Managing Editor of Berliner Zeitung, Editor in Chief of Financial Times Deutschland and Editor in Chief of Welt am Sonntag and Welt Online. In 2008, he moved into management roles at Axel Springer SE. Christoph is the author of bestselling books about digitisation, among them “Silicon Valley”. He is an economics graduate from the universities of Marburg and Frankfurt.

Richard d’Abo is a member of the Board of Directors at SSU. He has had a long career in the banking sector, working for Union Bank from 1978 to 1987. In 1984, Richard started Union Bank’s leverage finance lending group before leaving for Yucaipa. In 2009, Richard led Yucaipa’s $2.2 billion restructuring of Eimskip, a logistics company in the North Atlantic. In 2012, Eimskip completed its IPO (NASDAQ OMX: EIM) and Richard served as a Director and Chairman of Eimskip from 2012 to 2018. He was also active in Yucaipa’s consolidation of the cold storage industry, which resulted in the IPO of Americold (NYSE: COLD). Richard served as a member of the Board of Trustees for Americold from 2013 to 2018 and is the Chairman of New Planet Energy Development. Richard attended the University of Southern California.

Thomas Rudolph is a member of the Board of Directors. He has been a professor at St. Gallen University since 2000. In 2006, he founded the “Retail Lab”, a partnership programme between St. Gallen University and numerous international retailers. He is the Director of the Institute of Retail Management at the university. Thomas is the author of over 400 research articles and 11 books. He is a member of several advisory boards. Thomas studied business administration at Mannheim University.