Dr. Marc Deffland takes helm as Diakonie Wermelskirchen's new CEO

**Interim Management Extended Until End of 2024**

Bergisches Land/ The Diakonie Wermelskirchen has extended the contract for interim management by Diakonie Bethanien until the end of 2024. Diakonie Bethanien is thus initiating the next phase of the realignment of Diakonie Wermelskirchen.

Dr. Marc Deffland has been appointed as the new CEO of Diakonie Wermelskirchen. He will now lead the company together with Matthias Ruf, the chairman of the management board of Diakonie Bethanien. Dr. Stephan Ricken, CFO of Diakonie Bethanien, and Hartmut Fehler, CEO of Care & Living at Diakonie Bethanien, are leaving the management board at the same time but will continue to have power of attorney.

**Business Administrator, Pedagogue, Medical Scientist, and Hotel Director**

Dr. Marc Deffland, a 43-year-old business administrator, pedagogue, and medical scientist, has been appointed as the new CEO of Diakonie Wermelskirchen. He has been a lecturer at various universities since 2011 and has published articles on governance, reporting, and finance. Since 2014, he has been an advisor and juror for start-ups at the Business Plan Competition Berlin-Brandenburg.

After six years as a consultant at the auditing firm KPMG and seven years as the head of the corporate governance department at Charité Berlin, the native Oldenburg resident is currently a member of the extended management board of Diakonie Bethanien, CEO of MVZ Bethanien GmbH, and advises companies on topics related to governance and transparency in the context of sustainability and digitalization.

**Experienced Team with Matthias Ruf**

Dr. Marc Deffland has also been the CEO of the "Hotel Bethanien" on Langeoog since July 2020, where he successfully modernized, repositioned, and made the hotel economically viable within a year. "We have successfully repositioned our hotel on Langeoog in recent years in close coordination," explains Matthias Ruf. "We are an experienced team and therefore approach the challenge of Diakonie Wermelskirchen with confidence - creatively and ambitiously, but with North German restraint and thoroughness."

"The foundations and necessary structural changes have been laid by Matthias Ruf, Hartmut Fehler, and Dr. Stephan Ricken together with the management team in Wermelskirchen in recent months," says Dr. Marc Deffland. "The tracks for a sustainable development of Diakonie Wermelskirchen are thus laid, now we have to bring our ideas and concepts onto the tracks as quickly as possible - I am very much looking forward to that."

The current offer with mobile care, day care, and senior living communities will be maintained. Dr. Marc Deffland says that the focus now is on quickly increasing the occupancy rate, especially in the day care facilities Burger Hof and Wielviertel, where he sees great potential.