Christian Cools is new boss at Beck’s

If we did not have our archives at BRAUWELT International, we could run into trouble remembering which executives have run AB-InBev’s business unit Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Italy over the past few years. Because who can recall the name of Mr Hösel’s predecessor without resorting to Google? His name was Eric Lauwers (currently President of AB-InBev BeNeLux) who succeeded Oliver Tobias (now with Paulaner) in 2007.

Mr Hösel re-joined AB-InBev Germany in spring last year after a brief stint at AB-InBev’s Dutch unit. He had been with Beck’s since 1994 in various marketing and distribution functions.

During his tenure Mr Hösel had to announce the axing of about 10 percent of AB-InBev’s German workforce, currently standing at 3,000 people, to comply with AB-InBev’s strict cost-saving programme which is to help the world’s number one brewer to reduce its debt load piled high after the takeover of Anheuser-Busch in 2008.

Mr Hösel is succeeded by Christian Cools, who has been with the brewer since 1997, originally in charge of distribution in Flanders. He then held various positions in Belgium, most recently as Global Vice President Sales.