The Early Digital Guy: Thomas Middelhoff saw the future but was cut short by a reclusive controlling family, and the Internet bubble deflation

The shifting at flip flopping German media giant Bertelsmann (Bertie) has been happening slowly and mostly under the radar for months now in prep for the official arrival of incoming ruler Hart Ostrowski. It looks like Ostrowski has quietly handed over his CEO title at Bertie division Arvato to Rolf Buch, but still holds on to the Chairmanship as he waits for current Bertie CEO Gunter Thielen to leave the building. Gunter took over when the more aggressive digital media seeking Thomas Middelhoff was booted for basically pushing the company in the direction all big media players are going now. Middelhoff went high and low getting Bertie into the digital media business. Under Middelhoff, Bertie increased its internet activities by starting the online media portal BOL (Bertelsmann Online), which was sold to buch.de in 2002. But he then stepped back from these online engagements, for example by selling its shares of AOL-Europe back to Time Warner. Was this due to pressure from the clueless board of Bertie? Sure the internet bubble was still fresh off the bust, but Tom Middelhoff was the media CEO back then, that all media CEO's are racing to be in this digital media age today. Will incoming CEO Hart Ostrowski build up Bertie's digital media business, to make sure that Bertie is relevant in the next five to ten years? Middelhoff pissed off the secretive Mohn family when he put in motion plans to take the company private which would have given him the cash and glitz he, as well as the company needed to build the company's Internet offerings and status among its competitors, but not too long after he was canned. Back in 2002 Columnist Dan Milmo said Bertie has an image problem, and five years after, this still seems to be the case. Bertie needs to get out more, its senior execs need to rub elbows with America’s big media players and get into the club. The only glitzy business that Bertie is associated with here in the U.S. is it’s 50% stake music giant Sony-BMG and god knows how long they will be part of that. Bertie needs to get hip. Come on can’t you see, Hart Ostrowski escorting Beyonce to a major music event? Dudes, you have the potential utilize it. Is Thomas Middelhoff the next Rupert Murdoch? [MG 2002]