New management at WEKA Industrie Medien

Beatrice Schmidt takes over the management of the media house at the turn of the year.

Beatrice Schmidt replaces Florian Zangerl as managing director, who will devote himself to a new challenge outside the media industry from January at his own request. Zangerl transformed the company, which publishes titles such as Österreichische Industriemagazin, Solid and Firmenwagen, from a pure trade magazine publisher into an integrated media house.

The subsidiary of the German WEKA group of companies emerged from the merger of Industriemagazin Verlag and the magazine division of WEKA in Austria and today employs around 60 people. In addition to B2B media, the portfolio includes its own Content Marketing Agency (B2Impact), a large event area and several digital platforms.

"Beatrice has been instrumental in shaping and driving all of these developments over the past years; without her, the transformation would never have succeeded in this form," says Zangerl. Schmidt has been dynamically developing the event sector since 2011, which is a permanent fixture in the B2B sector with events such as the Gainer Industry Festival and over 20 annual trade conferences.

In the Covid year, it clearly demonstrated its approach to digitalisation: 90 percent of the planned events took place - but purely virtually or hybrid. The events are broadcast from the company's own studio, which was built in the summer, and Industriemedien is also the exclusive partner of the German event platform meetyoo for the Austrian market.

"The challenges for media companies have not diminished since Corona, but we have used this year incredibly efficiently to rebuild our portfolio around media brands, so I am sure 2021 will be a real gamechanger year for us," Schmidt says of her plans.