Frankfurt Book Fair director Lorenzo Rudolf and his COO, Joachim Kehl, have parted company with the fair's parent organization, the Exhibitions and Fair Agency, itself a subsidiary of the Borsenverein, Germany's combined publishers and booksellers association.
The departure of Rudolf, who joined the company only in time to run his first fair in 2001, is attributed to differences of opinion regarding the proper relationship of fair management to its supervisory board, whose chairman is Hubertus Schenkel, a Holtzbrinck publishing group executive. Rudolf, who joined the Frankfurt Fair after a successful career at Basel's art fair, had been criticized for a number of his early initiatives, including an aborted Frankfurt—in—New York rights fair, but the official word is that such policy differences were not a factor in the separation. It was more a matter of management style, and relations between management and the supervisors.
Pending recruitment of a new fair director, the Exhibitions and Fair Agency will be headed by Harald Heker, general secretary of the Borsenverein, who said the 2002 fair, set for October 9—14, will not be affected by the change.
Fair organizers did hire a new exhibits manager, Daniela Rose. Her new title is director of the department of exhibition management. She had been with Reed Exhibitions Deutschland.
