The managing director and managing partner are leaving Vice Switzerland
Managing Director Patrick Fourth and managing partner Raffael Leu left Vice Switzerland at the end of August. “Different opinions about the future orientation of the company towards the Swiss” are the reasons for the departures.
The successor and “the new direction of the Swiss location” will be announced in autumn, says Vice Switzerland on Zurich’s Binzstrasse. Patrick Viert and Raffael Leu “leave the company with an unknown destination”.
There was already a change in the management of the online company in May: According to the “Schweizerisches Handelsamtsblatt” (SHAB) from May 24th, it is also Richard Waterlow left Vice Switzerland GmbH. According to the online imprint, the Briton was employed as Chief Operating Officer.
According to the SHAB, the Austrian is new to Vice Switzerland GmbH Stefan Haeckel, who has been running electricity as CEO Vice DACH since January 2018. The former Austria boss was at the helm at the time newly created holding company moved, which includes the vice companies in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Vienna and Zurich and is to “organizationally” link them with one another.
The online medium is aimed at millennials. In the self-description it is said that you are the “voice of a new generation”. The stories and videos of the loud imprint of the four-person Swiss editorial team revolve around travel, politics, music, fashion, sports and, again and again, sex.
The German-language branches of Vice have already produced TV formats for ZDF, ProSieben, Arte and Swiss Radio and Television (SRF). The headquarters of the media group, which was founded in Canada in 1994, is now New York.
Patrick Viert, Managing Director of Vice Switzerland, did not want to comment on the Klein Report’s request on Friday: “No comment” was the only answer to his departure. Communication seems to be even more difficult for Vice in the DACH region. After asking several times, I was able to Kristof Albrink, Corporate Communications Manager, to say curtly: “We don’t hand out muzzles.”
According to Albrink, “currently 30 people” work for the Swiss branch. According to research by the Klein Report, more people will soon be leaving the company.
In a media release on Friday, Patrick Viert, Raffael Leu and the new CEO for the DACH region, Stefan Häckel, were quoted as hymns of praise for the company. Viert: “In a single market environment, we have been able to build up a successful company over the past three years, forge sustainable partnerships and celebrate important successes with the team.” Viert looks back on his time at Vice with “pride and gratitude”.
Although there are different ideas about the direction of the company at the Swiss location, “the moment is used to fill key positions in the coming months and to prepare the company for the next phase of growth”.
And Raffael Leu, Managing Partner of Virtue Switzerland: “With Virtue we have achieved what so many media companies are currently trying to do: Establishing a successful creative agency that can win well-known lead accounts and awards.” Under sees Virtue “ideally positioned to start in a successful next phase”.