Stefanie Brandes

In addition to Arno Schwalie as CEO and CTO Frank Lindner, Stefanie Brandes will lead the fortunes of Lindner Hotels with the two brands Lindner Hotels & Resorts and me and all hotels as Chief Operations Officer. The 47-year-old brings 23 years of tourism experience to the Düsseldorf hotel group, including eleven years in corporate groups and medium-sized companies and twelve years in the hotel industry.

Highly experienced marketing strategist

Most recently, Stefanie Brandes was Managing Director of Aldiana GmbH, with overall responsibility for nine holiday clubs in five countries. During this time, she opened two new club resorts in Austria and Italy. She steered the company sovereignly through the insolvency of Thomas Cook AG, which was a shareholder in Aldiana, and transferred it to a new shareholder structure in 2020. As a result, the industry awarded her 2nd place in the Travel Industry Manager 2020 election. Subsequently, she successfully mastered the challenges of the Corona pandemic.

In the process, her great strengths became apparent: The constant look ahead, her empathic leadership style and her marketing and sales skills. As the daughter of a travel agency owner, Stefanie Brandes was literally born with a passion for tourism, which is why she initially studied business administration with a focus on tourism and quickly discovered her penchant for sales and marketing. After first working in sales and as Head of Brand Management at Thomas Cook, she deepened this with a Master of Business Marketing at the FU Berlin in 2011.

The team is the be-all and end-all

Stefanie Brandes then took over as Head of Marketing & Sales at Aldiana. In this position, she was responsible for all B2B and B2C activities and led the Marketing, Event & Sport, E-Commerce and Sales teams. "Employees have always been my top priority and I get insane pleasure from developing teams and moving a company forward together," Stefanie Brandes explains. Her additional coaching training with a focus on leadership and her commitment to the next generation of tourism professionals as a mentor at the University of Worms and the Travel Industry Club underscore this passion.

The brand as a big whole

From 2015, Stefanie Brandes was Director Marketing & Sales and at the same time authorized signatory for Robinson Club. During this time, she was responsible for the brand's national and international strategy, among other things. "For me, brand strategy, positioning and architecture are the cornerstones of a successful product," emphasizes the future COO of Lindner Hotels AG. Her strength in brand management is evidenced by awards such as the Globus Award 2018 for the Robinson brand and 2022 for the Aldiana Club Resorts brand. In addition, there are international awards such as the Silver Meeting Industry Marketing Award with the Robinson brand in 2017 and several 1st place awards at the Advertising Grand Prix in the category TV & cinema spots. In addition, Stefanie Brandes has been a jury member for the annual German Marketing Award since 2016.

The new board of Lindner Hotels AG is complete

"Stefanie Brandes is a successful brand strategist with strong leadership skills and crisis experience. I am very pleased to join her and Arno Schwalie as board members to lead our family business into the future, which my brother Otto has successfully built up with Andreas Krökel over almost 30 years," said Frank Lindner, Chief Technical Officer of Lindner Hotels AG. "After really appreciative discussions with the shareholders, I am very much looking forward to working with the entire team at Lindner Hotels AG. In this context, I am particularly attracted by the topic of brand: I find it extremely exciting to further innovate Lindner Hotels & Resorts as a well-known brand and to support me and all hotels as a young brand in its expansion," says Stefanie Brandes.

Stefanie Brandes is married, a proud aunt and enjoys spending her free time on the golf course, going for walks, dancing or playing the saxophone.