DPDgroup CEO Boris Winkelmann passes away suddenly

Boris Winkelmann, GeoPost/DPDgroup CEO, former DPD Germany chief and co-founder of CEP-Research, has passed away suddenly.

The 51-year-old executive died on Wednesday evening in Hamburg, La Poste and DPDgroup announced. He leaves a wife and two daughters.

Widely known throughout the international parcels industry, Winkelmann was a dynamic and inspiring personality who motivated colleagues with his leadership skills, strategic vision and hands-on management style.

“Inspiring energy”

“Boris has left a lasting impression on everyone he met with his positive and inspiring energy, his deep caring for others, his insatiable curiosity and his contagious enthusiasm,” said Philippe Wahl, Chairman and CEO of La Poste Group, in a tribute.

“For two years at the head of GeoPost, he started a deep transformation for the business and took on unprecedented challenges. With an exceptional action-oriented vision for strategy, he set the corner stone for our Group’s new ambition towards international growth. We are profoundly affected by his passing, which more than ever brings us to carry on his values.”

Parcels industry expert

Boris Winkelmann started his career in the express and parcels industry in 1994 at the TNT Express head office. In 1999, he joined La Poste’s international holding GeoPost, and coordinated the acquisition of DPD Germany.

In the year 2000, the multilingual manager teamed up with his brother Mark to set up the industry consultancy ITA Logistics (later ITA Consulting) and the online shipping platform LetMeShip in Hamburg.

In 2005, the company launched CEP-Research as a specialist news and market intelligence platform for the international parcels, express and postal industry. Over the following years, he played a decisive role helping to establish the business and broaden the customer base.

DPDgroup career

In 2013, Winkelmann moved to DPD Germany as COO and became CEO one year later. Over the following years he restructured and expanded the B2B parcels specialist with new services and built up the company’s B2C activities to target the e-commerce sector.

At the start of 2020, he moved to Paris as Executive Vice President of GeoPost / DPDgroup and took over as CEO in June that year upon the retirement of long-serving Paul-Marie Chavanne.

Over the past 18 months, Winkelmann led Europe’s biggest parcels operator through the COVID-19 pandemic, including unprecedented volume growth, and launched a wide-ranging and ambitious sustainability strategy to reduce the parcel operator’s CO2 emissions.

In March this year, he presented the ‘Together & Beyond’ medium-term growth strategy, aiming to double DPDgroup revenues by 2025 through new services, acquisitions and partnerships.