How do you handle challenges your team has encountered in China?

At Metro, we promote true entrepreneurship and strong leadership, and this is particularly true for China.

We fully trust our China team to meet the challenges in the country and they are encouraged and empowered to take decisions and be responsible for business growth and value creation.

At the moment we are in the process of defining the strategic direction for 2020-25.

In this context we will not only review and extrapolate our current performance and asset base, but also raise questions like: "What else? How can we serve this market and our target groups even better? What do we need for that? ".

Of course this will be worked out by the local leadership team, but there will be strong support and engagement from the responsible operating partner at the headquarters and the value creation team.

What do you think about the Chinese dream? What are the dreams you have for your company in China?

As a dedicated company seeking long-term growth in China, Metro sees the overall prosperity and high quality of life for the Chinese people will provide us with good opportunities to grow our business and enhance proximity to the community.

We strongly believe food will play a major role in the coming years as people pay more attention to health, quality of life and safety.

We are convinced that this is a huge opportunity for the society, the agriculture and the food service sector.

The vision I have for Metro in China is to become a trusted solution partner for our customers based on emotional relationship, high quality assortment, superior services and multi-channel sales.

What are your hobbies? How do you spend your time outside work when you are in China?

Besides sports and modern music I love to travel and learn more about culture and history.

China is a very rich country in this regard and whenever I get a chance to learn more about it, I seize the opportunity.