Kempinski Loses CEO and Five Senior Execs as Sale Talks Stall

Kempinski Hotels has lost Group CEO Barbara Muckermann after nearly two and a half years, and she did not leave alone. Chief Financial Officer Gordon Drake, Chief Human Resources Officer Karin Raguin, Chief Development Officer Frank Veenstra and Chief Brand Officer Barbara Biffi have also exited, according to multiple sources who spoke to Skift. Chief Commercial Officer Massimo Brancaleuni has resigned, though whether he has physically left the building remains unclear.

The departures land squarely on the functions that were supposed to reposition the luxury group. Kempinski reported 74 hotels and residences across 33 countries in a September 30 announcement, and it manages most of them for independent owners. That model makes management fees — not property ownership — the lifeblood of the P&L.

What do the numbers say?

The 2024 filings tell a company shrinking while staying in the black. Consolidated revenue fell to €164.6 million from €174.9 million, and management-fee revenue declined to €41.8 million. Net profit rose to €17.6 million, which sounds like progress until you read the next line: the management report forecast a sharp decline in 2025 pretax profit.

A luxury brand with falling management fees is, in trade terms, a manager with weaker leverage over owners. Every basis point of fee erosion matters more when most of your estate belongs to someone else.

Who is in charge now?

Succession is unclear. Speculation among sources points to Chairman René Nijhof taking over on an interim basis. The company has already moved to fill two seats, naming Noel Attard as chief development officer and Andrea Vanni as CFO. The board presents both as continuity in the transformation.

Whether continuity is the right word for a leadership team that turned over most of its C-suite in a single wave is a question owners will be asking. Some of the departing executives had joined only recently; Veenstra was named CDO in September 2025.

Why did they leave?

The reasons remain disputed, according to multiple sources. What is not disputed is the backdrop: two separate capital conversations were running at once.

Sources said the owners — the Bahraini-controlled group — had been seeking a financial buyer, with some prospects balking at the asking price. Meanwhile, Muckermann had been discussing financing with bankers and capital providers for further hotel purchases.

Read those together and you get the tension. One camp wanted to sell the company; the CEO wanted to buy hotels with it. A owner shopping the asset and a CEO shopping for assets rarely coexist for long.

The price friction matters for the wider market. A stalled sale of a 74-property luxury platform (a network of hotels under one brand and management contract) suggests sellers still expect pre-2022 multiples while financial buyers are pricing in the fee decline already visible in the filings.

What happens next?

Kempinski did not answer Skift's detailed questions, and Muckermann declined to comment. The board's replacement picks — Attard and Vanni — will inherit a portfolio where development momentum is the recovery thesis, and where that thesis now depends on financing that was being arranged by executives who are no longer there.

For the group's independent owners, the immediate question is contractual rather than sentimental: who signs off on brand standards, capex plans and commercial strategy while the C-suite churns. For competitors recruiting development talent, the churn is a gift.

The year ahead will show whether the forecast drop in 2025 pretax profit marks a trough or the start of a slide, and whether a buyer emerges at a price the owners can accept.