Reinhard Mohn

Reinhard Mohn (1921 to 2009) was a German businessman and philanthropist who guided Bertelsmann from a medium-sized printing and publishing house, established in 1835, into a global media group. Born as the fifth child of a family that had owned the firm for five generations, he returned from American captivity in 1946 and took over the management of the C. Bertelsmann publishing company in 1947, when his father transferred the publishing license to him. In 1950 he set up the Bertelsmann Lesering book club, which drove the company's fast growth, and he introduced employee loan participation in 1951 and a profit-sharing model in 1969. In 1971 he turned the family firm into a joint stock corporation and became chairman of its executive board, continuing a corporate culture built on partnership between management and employees. He moved to the supervisory board in 1981 and in 1977 founded the non-profit Bertelsmann Stiftung.