Oliver Frese

Oliver Frese is Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Koelnmesse GmbH. He was appointed to the Management Board effective 1 January 2020. As COO, he is responsible for operational trade fair management and development as well as event-related marketing and sales activities.

Born in 1967, Oliver Frese began his professional career in 1995 as assistant to management at Richard Kühn/Perfekta Dienstleistungen GmbH, a medium-sized company based in Burgwedel in the district of Hanover.

He moved from there in 1997 to join DeTe Immobilien und Service GmbH, a Deutsche Telekom AG subsidiary in Hanover, and was appointed Head of Marketing and Internal Sales in 1998.

From 2000 to 2004, Oliver Frese worked for the Baden-Württemberg energy supply company EnBW in Hanover and Stuttgart in the role of Marketing Manager, before joining Deutsche Messe AG in 2004.

He was involved there until 2013 in further development of the HANNOVER MESSE, the world’s leading trade fair for industrial technology, and held overall responsibility for the event in his last role as Business Unit Manager. In May 2013, he was appointed to the Management Board of Deutsche Messe AG, where he was responsible until late 2018 for the ICT & Digital Business Events department, the Technology and Services business units and subsidiaries Fachausstellungen Heckmann GmbH, spring Messe Management GmbH, Messe Gastronomie Hannover GmbH and Gesellschaft für Verkehrsförderung GmbH.

Before joining the Management Board of Koelnmesse GmbH, Oliver Frese worked as an independent management consultant in 2019.