Frank Vrancken Peeters joined Springer Nature in 2017 as Chief Commercial Officer and became CEO in September 2019. He has spent more than 25 years in the media and publishing sectors, with leadership roles across a range of strategic and delivery business functions in both business-to-business and business-to-consumer contexts. Frank has previously had senior positions at: Wolters Kluwer, where he was Regional Managing Director, Legal and Regulatory, Western Europe; at Infinitas Learning, where he was Chief Operating Officer; and Elsevier Science, where he served as MD Government and Academic Markets, MD ScienceDirect and MD Global Sales, in each case building and growing significant-scale, complex international businesses. Frank holds a Master’s in Business Administration from the Erasmus University Rotterdam.
Carolyn Honour is a pharmacist by background and has worked in medical and research publishing for more than 25 years. She joined Springer Science+Business Media in 2009 - following previous periods at Informa Healthcare and PJB Publications - with editorial and publishing roles in biomedical and pharmaceutical sciences. In 2014 Carolyn became Managing Director of Springer Healthcare. She joined the Executive Team of Springer Nature in January 2021 and leads the Research Sales and Marketing organisation.
Rachel Jacobs holds postgraduate diplomas in Law and Legal Practice from the College of Law, as well as a degree in Environmental Science from the University of Leeds. As an experienced corporate lawyer, she has held roles at CMS Cameron McKenna and various senior positions in the legal team at the FTSE listed media business, Informa plc.
Rachel joined Macmillan Science and Education as Global General Counsel in 2011, before taking up her role at Springer Nature in May 2015.
Harsh Jegadeesan joined Springer Nature in 2022 as Chief Solutions Officer and was appointed Chief Publishing Officer in March 2023. Harsh is responsible for the continued growth of our journal and book publishing businesses and for driving our leadership of open access.
Harsh has over 20 years of experience leading diverse global teams to innovate, incubate and scale new digital products and platforms to drive significant business growth. Previously, Harsh was the Vice President of Products and Strategy at SAP SE.
Harsh trained as an engineer and holds a PhD in Computer Science from BITS, Pilani India and has completed the Accelerated Development Program at the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business.
Marc Spenlé joined Springer Nature in 2022 as Chief Operating Officer. He has spent over 20 years in technology and telecommunication companies, in different leadership roles, leading diverse and global teams, ranging from technology, integration and software architecture, to operations and customer facing roles, in business and consumer related envrionments. He served in various executive and C-level roles in Barco NV, Vodafone Germany, Vodafone Group and in IBM. Marc is a trained process engineer (Dipl.ing.) and a systemic business coach.
Ulrich Vest holds degrees in Business Administration and Engineering from the universities of Darmstadt and Lyon. He became Manager of Controlling at Procter & Gamble GmbH, and then returned to academia as a research assistant and PhD candidate in the Finance and Corporate Accounting department at Bayreuth University.
Following his time in academia, Ulrich held several high-level positions at Bertelsmann AG, Bertelsmann Fachinformation and BertelsmannSpringer. He became Chief Financial Officer at Springer Nature in May 2015, following 11 years as CFO for Springer.
Reto Andreoli joined Springer Nature in 2020 as Executive Vice President, Management Reporting, Planning and Analysis from 1 October. He began his career in the audit department at KPMG and moved on to senior finance and controlling positions at LafargeHolcim und the Swarovski group. Reto graduated in business administration and holds a Post-graduate Diploma in Financial Strategy and International Finance from the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. He is also a Certified Public Accountant from the Swiss Institute of Public/Chartered Accountants.
Jan-Erik de Boer has a strong track record in the field of computer sciences and management. From 1992 onwards he worked as IT Manager at the Housing Corporation “Binnen de Ringvaart” and Relan ICT. Between 2000 and 2004, Jan-Erik served as Manager of Operations & Support and ICT Director at Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Following the merger of Kluwer Academic Publishers and Springer, Jan-Erik de Boer became Springer’s IT Director in 2004, taking on the role of Executive Vice President of IT in 2007. In 2015, Jan-Erik was appointed Chief Information Officer of Springer Nature.
Steven Inchcoombe read Physics at Merton College, Oxford and qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC. From 1990 to 2000, Steven was at Interactive Data Corporation, where he ultimately became responsible for strategy, M&A and the EMEA region, and during this period the business became listed on NASDAQ. He then moved on to Board positions with the Financial Times Group, including UK Publisher of the Financial Times and Managing Director of ft.com.
Steven joined the Macmillan Board in 2006. From 2007 to 2013, he led the Nature Publishing Group (NPG), and in 2013 became CEO of Macmillan’s Science and Scholarly division, comprising NPG, Scientific American and Palgrave Macmillan.
After founding Springer Nature in May 2015, he was appointed Managing Director of the Nature Research Group. From March 2016 – 2022 he was Chief Publishing Officer at Springer Nature. In February 2023 he was appointed to President, Research.
Gregor Karolus has spent more than 25 years in research and publishing. He holds a diploma in Business Management and began his career in Research Management at the German Research Centre for Environmental Health, Helmholtz Zentrum München. From 1997 on, Gregor held several senior HR positions at Bertelsmann in the Professional Information Division. From 2002 on, he assumed the Top-HR Function first at BertelsmannSpringer and later at Springer Science+Business Media. Since the merger in 2015 he is Chief Human Resources Officer at Springer Nature. Gregor has also served as Judge at the Industrial Tribunal in Berlin from 2002-2012 and since 2012 at the Higher Industrial Tribunal Berlin-Brandenburg.
Daniel Korany studied international marketing at universities in Germany and Mexico, later becoming a Director at Simon-Kucher & Partners in Munich, where he worked on consultancy projects in strategy, marketing, sales and pricing in the media and technology sectors. In 2017, Daniel joined Springer Nature as Director Pricing Commercial Analytics within the CCO leadership team, where he has led a number of strategic projects across the business and played a key role in the development of new business models.
Joachim Krieger holds an MBA from the University of Stuttgart. He started his career at the Württembergische Metallwarenfabrik (WMF), where he worked in different sales positions and in 1996 was eventually appointed Head of Sales and Service for WMF Coffee Machines Germany. In 2000 Joachim became Director of the Heinrich Vogel Verlag and subsequently held different positions in the Professional division of Springer Nature. In October 2019 he was appointed Managing Director Education & Professional.
A history graduate from the University of Leeds, Joyce Lorigan has spent more than 25 years in communications. Recent London-based roles include Vice President Global Communications of FTSE 100 company Intercontinental Hotels Group (IHG plc) and Vice President Corporate Communications for the Walt Disney group of companies in EMEA. Joyce also spent three years as Director of Alliance Marketing for EuroDisney SCA based in Paris. She joined Macmillan Science and Education as Global Communications Director in 2012 and following its merger with Springer, became Executive Vice President of Communications of Springer Nature. She now serves as Group Head of Corporate Affairs, is a member of the Springer Nature Executive Team and leads the company’s sustainability programme. Joyce chaired the Board of London-based business partnership Urban Partners from 2014-2017. She is currently Chair of STM Association Strategic Communication Committee and a Board member of leading UK conservation charity, the Marine Conservation Society.
