Frank Appel

Frank Appel is a German manager who was chief executive of Deutsche Post from 2008 to 2023. Born in 1961 and raised in Hamburg, he took a master's degree in chemistry at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich in 1989 and a doctorate in neurobiology at ETH Zurich in 1993, and he worked as a McKinsey consultant before joining Deutsche Post in 2000. He became a member of its Board of Management in November 2002. He chaired the supervisory board of Deutsche Postbank until the end of 2010, and as chief executive he accompanied Chancellor Angela Merkel on state visits abroad, including to China in 2012 and 2014. In April 2022 he was elected to the supervisory board of Deutsche Telekom and then chosen as its chairman. He also holds other board roles, among them chair of the supervisory board of RWE since 2025 and membership of the senate of the Max Planck Society.