Executive Management

• Jürgen Kurz Chief Executive Officer (CEO)

Senior Management

• Paul Brothe (Managing Director, Nero D&S and Senior Vice President, Worldwide Services)
• Martin Stein (Senior Vice President, Global Products)
• Daniel Benz (Managing Director Nero EMEA Sales GmbH, Vice President, Sales, EMEA)
• Laurent Ruben (President Nero Inc., Vice President of Sales Americas)
• Chris Chen (General Manager, China)
• Simone Hoefer (General Manager, Technology)

Paul Brothe – Managing Director, Nero D&S, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Services

Paul Brothe, Managing Director, Nero Development & Services GmbH and Senior Vice President of Worldwide Services, is responsible for managing Nero’s German operations, Global Customer Support, IT, and Human Resources.

Prior to joining Nero in 2009, Brothe was the Senior Vice President of Operations and Customer Support at Quark, which included oversight of Quark’s India development center. Brothe excelled at roles in Auditing, Quality Assurance, Customer Support, Integration, Manufacturing and EMEA sales while at Storage Area Network provider McDATA and Qwest Communications. He has extensive international management experience in both Europe and Asia.

Brothe holds two Master’s degrees from the University of Colorado in Finance and International Business, as well as a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance from Metropolitan State College in Denver.

Martin Stein – Senior Vice President, Global Products

Martin Stein, Senior Vice President, Global Products, joined Nero in January 2010 and is responsible for our new Consumer and Advanced Hobbyist product lines as well as project management, release management and quality control teams.

Previously, Stein served as VP of Global Products at Nero where he was responsible for Product Development and Product Management. Prior to joining Nero, he served as VP of Products and Services at Extensis. Under Stein’s direction, Extensis successfully developed and released their next generation font and digital asset management applications. Before Extensis, Stein held Product Management and Business Development positions at Quark and Apple. As digital media pioneer and self-taught software engineer, he co-founded a software startup and served as Editor-in-Chief for MACup magazine and Creative Live, and as Deputy Editor-in-Chief for Macwelt Germany.

Stein holds a Master’s degree in Social Science with an emphasis on empirical research and statistics from the Technical University Stuttgart.

Daniel Benz – Managing Director Nero EMEA Sales GmbH, Vice President, Sales, EMEA

Daniel Benz, Managing Director Nero EMEA Sales GmbH, Vice President of Sales for Nero in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA), oversees all Retail, Volume Licensing, and Online Sales divisions within the region.

During his nearly 10-year tenure with Nero, Benz held a variety of sales positions within the company, in which he successfully developed a number of new markets and channels. Key accounts and programs under his supervision delivered a consistent and reliable revenue stream.

Benz’s previous responsibilities included the management and expansion of Nero´s Retail and Volume Licensing channel and marketing activities in EMEA and the Asia Pacific Region outside of Japan.

Benz holds a Master´s degree in International Business Studies and Culture from the University of Passau in Germany.

Laurent Ruben – President Nero Inc., Vice President of Sales Americas

Laurent Ruben, President Nero Inc., Vice President of Sales Americas, he oversees all Retail, Volume Licensing, and OEM sales activities .

Before joining Nero in January 2011, Ruben spent over 7 years at Quark Inc., where he served as Director of Sales North America. During his tenure, he also drove Quark’s efforts in successfully repositioning the company in South Europe for both Desktop and Enterprise publishing products.

Prior to Quark, Ruben was CEO for Sur La Terre Medias, a Web start-up in high-end web content portal including a network of 25 printed city magazines in both Europe and US.

Ruben holds two Master’s degrees from Middlesex University (London, UK) and Euromed Management (Marseille, France) in European Management and in Economics. He is fluent in French, English, Italian and Spanish.

Chris Chen – General Manager, China

Chris Chen, General Manager for China, leads the China Development Center.

Prior to joining Nero in 2007, Chen was Director of Video Products at ArcSoft and has more than 10 years of coding experience in embedded system, main frame bank system and Microsoft Windows applications. He also has five years of management experience within the multimedia software industry, specifically focusing on video editing products, TV-related technologies, codecs and BD and HD DVD related technologies.

Chen holds a Masters degree in Laser Physics with the China Institute of Metrology.

Simone Hoefer – General Manager, Technology

Simone Hoefer, General Manager, Technology at the corporate headquarters for Nero AG, is responsible for the development of the core technologies at Nero AG and the implementation of an effective R&D process lifecycle ensuring that the business lines and the office of the CTO, as well as remote teams in China work efficiently in a distributed environment via a market driven approach.

Prior to joining Nero in January 2006, Hoefer had more than 17 years of experience in the IT industry from a technical and business perspective, having held various positions in Software Development, Customer Training, and Product Management for companies specializing in various technological areas. She has also been instrumental in the development of innovative companies in the broadband networking and VoIP markets, starting 2001 as an executive director.

Ms. Hoefer studied Mathematics and Physics at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany and holds a degree in Business Administration.