Looking Back: Bertelsmann will never see another CEO like Thomas Middelhoff

-BY SDH Thomas Middelhoff, the former CEO of German media giant Bertelsmann AG was a German media exec with the makings of a U.S. media exec. He spent more time here in the U.S. than probably any other Bertie CEO has or will. He rubbed elbows with Hollywood trying to bring Bertie into the U.S. spotlight. However in the long run, Middelhoff was too out in the open and to ambitious to transform the company into a major digital player which every media company is trying to do now. Middelhoff was ahead of the game but like we said, got cut short by a reclusive, controlling family and a board of directors that just didn't get it, and to this day still doesn't get it. You can't be the CEO of a foreign media company and not work the elite circles in the media superpower that is America. We came across a Businessweek cover story on Thomas Middelhoff, and it reads like it would read if it was a story on Les Moonves, Bob Iger or even Phil Dauman. The Gulfstream Jet, the high profile events, Thomas Middelhoff wanted to bring Bertie out of the dark that it still sits in but, apparently the Mohn family likes to keep it in the dark. Don't get us wrong, Thomas Middelhoff like many other media CEOs made his blunders as well and is in no way perfect. But you have to wonder where would Bertie be today if he was allowed to take the company public and build its digital offerings? Will we ever read such a profile on new Bertelsmann CEO Hartmut "Hart" Ostrowski? Maybe not as he may turn out to be a Mohn Family puppet, and shun America. Middelhoff was pro America if not on a personal level then on a business level and that too could have been the recipe that did him in. Thomas Middelhoff doesn't look up as his Gulfstream jet gains altitude over France's Cote d'Azur. He ignores views of the shimmering Mediterranean and the mist-shrouded Alpes-Maritimes. Instead, the chairman and CEO of Bertelsmann, the world's third-largest media company, is hunched over a pile of newspaper clippings, devouring the day's news from the entertainment and online world. And it has already been a long day. After waking at 5 a.m. in the rural German town of Gutersloh and taking a swim in his indoor pool, Middelhoff has hopped a plane for Cannes to give a pep talk to top executives of BMG Entertainment, Bertelsmann's music division. Then it's back to the airport in a Mercedes whose chauffeur seems to be on loan from Formula One. Bertelsmann: A New Net Powerhouse? [BW Archives]