Caroline Thoma will take over the management of Blick Group and join the Executive Board of Ringier Switzerland. She is expected to start her new position in August, succeeding Thomas Passen who will leave the company due to differences in opinion regarding the strategic orientation of Blick Group. The company would like to thank Thomas Passen for his services over the past 13 years, particularly his valuable contribution to the successful launch of the reorganized Blick Group.

Also, the Editor-in-Chief of Blick, Bernhard Weissberg, will step down in view of the paper’s upcoming relaunch, the introduction of a newsroom and various related structural changes. Deputy Editor-in-Chief Ralph Grosse-Bley will oversee the day-to-day editorial operations. Until a new editor-in-chief is named, Marc Walder will have overall journalistic responsibility for Blick, in addition to his duties as General Manager of Ringier Switzerland. Bernhard Weissberg and Ringier AG are currently discussing various options of a possible move within the company.

Caroline Thoma has been CEO of punkt ch AG since 2007. In this position she was responsible for the editorial and publishing operations of.ch, a free paper with 69 employees in five locations in Switzerland. Previously, she had been Managing Director of Annabelle for five years and held the same position at SonntagsZeitung for two years. From 1996 to 1998, Caroline Thoma was Deputy Managing Director and Head Reader Market at the weekly newspaper cash published by Ringier.

Thomas Passen has held a variety of positions since joining Ringier in 1996. He started out as Manager Production and Advertising Coordination, followed by Publishing Manager of Gesundheit Sprechstunde and cash, and was responsible for the Reader and Advertising Market Magazines. In 2007 he was named Head of Publishing and in 2008 Head of Blick Group and Member of the Executive Board of Ringier Switzerland.

Bernhard Weissberg was made Deputy Editor-in-Chief of Blick in 1997. Subsequently, from 1997 to 2001, he was Editor-in-Chief of SonntagsBlick, and in 2006 he was named Editor-in-Chief of heute and Editor-in-Chief of Blick in November 2007. As Division Head Newspapers, Bernhard Weissberg was a member of the Group Executive Board of Ringier between 2002 and 2006.

Communications Ringier Switzerland