WAN-IFRA’s World Printers Forum Board elects new Chair and Vice-Chair

2019-04-08

The WAN-IFRA's World Printers Forum Board elected Herbert Kaiser, Senior Manager, Product and Project Management, Koenig & Bauer Digital & Webfed AG & Co. KG, Würzburg, Germany, as the new Chairman and Max Garrido, Managing Director of the Spanish newspaper printing company Corporacion Bermont, as the new Vice Chairman.

The Board of the World Printers Forum (WPF), the print community within WAN-FRA, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, met in Sarajevo on 25 and 26 March 2019 at the invitation of its member Mujo Selimović, publisher of the Bosnian newspaper Oslobodjenje.

The former Chairman, Dr. Rick Stunt of dmg-media in London, UK, left the Board after his second term of office in accordance with the articles of WPF.

The following members of the WPF Board also retired after their second term of office:

Dr. Michael Hirthammer, Sun Chemical, Karlstein, Germany
Jan Kasten, former ppi Media GmbH, Hamburg, Germany
Josef Konrad Schießl, Süddeutscher Verlag Zeitungsdruck, Munich, Germany
Peder Schumacher, V-TAB AB, Gothenburg, Sweden

WAN-IFRA would like to thank all board members who have actively built the World Printers Forum over the years and brought its activities to life for their valuable work.

The Board now consists of six representatives from publishers and printers and six representatives from supplier companies to the newspaper industry:

Herbert Kaiser, Koenig & Bauer, Würzburg, Germany (chair)

Max Garrido, Corporation Bermont, Madrid, Spain (vice-chair)

Anu Ahola, UPM, Helsinki, Finland

Andreas Gierth, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Sanat Hazra, The Times of India Group, Mumbai, India

Menno Jansen, Q.I. Press Controls BV, EAE, Oosterhout, Netherlands

Mujo Selimović, Oslobodjenje, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Thomas K. Isaksen, DDPFF, Copenhagen, Denmark

Sally Pirri, The Globe and Mail, Toronto, Canada

Rainer Kirschke, Agfa Graphics, Düsseldorf, Germany

Manuel Kosok, manroland Goss, Augsburg, Germany

Gideon Martz, MakroSolutions, Schkeuditz, Germany

At its spring meeting in Sarajevo, the Board reviewed last year's work and discussed the progress of current projects. In 2018, the World Printers Forum published three research projects:

“Time Spent Reading News Brands”, a study on reader engagement in print and digital (September 2018)
“The Sustainability of Newspapers”, a report published together with Two Sides (UK) in August 2018
“Implications of changing to lower grammage newsprint”, a study of the economics behind the use of lighter-weight newsprint (February 2018)

In addition, the second improved edition of the handbook “Optimised Paper Handling and Logistics” was published in printed form last year together with 30 other associations and companies.

The following projects are scheduled for completion in 2019:

Report on the successful participants in the competition for the Print Innovation Awards 2018
Changing Print, turning points in newspaper technology since 1970
Mechanical audits of printing presses
High-Value Print Production II, in-depth interviews and rich case studies of newspaper printers

In 2019 the World Printers Forum will launch the second international Print Innovation Awards competition, a new round of the competition for membership in the International Newspaper Color Quality Club 2010-2022, a World Printers Forum Conference in New Delhi, India, in September and a World Printers Forum Conference in October in Berlin, Germany, as part of the Berlin Publishing Days.

About the World Printers Forum

The World Printers Forum is the print community within WAN-IFRA. It advises WAN-IFRA in all aspects of the printed newspaper. Newspaper production is defined as the business of production planning, prepress data handling and processing, press and mailroom operations including connected topics in terms of management and technical implementation.