Fond Of loses managing director to Aldi Nord

The start-up Fond Of sells seven brands, including Pinqponq and Aveor. Now its Managing Director Dirk Schülgen is leaving to join Aldi Nord.

Dirk Schülgen was Managing Director of the start-up Fond Of for three and a half years and is now in charge of international marketing at Aldi Nord. Schülgen is to expand and professionalize the discounter's marketing. In his role, he reports to COO Sascha Schikarski: "With an international, strategically working marketing department, we want to further professionalize, digitalize and standardize our processes," Schikarski explains the strategy.

Schülgen worked at Nike as head of the marketing team for the DACH region and at Electronic Arts for eleven years. He joined Fond of as Managing Director in 2017. The Cologne-based start-up initially focused primarily on the production of ergonomic school bags, with Ergobag being its best-known brand, but the company also sells the Aevor and Pinqponq brands.

The founding of the start-up is a cliché: a party in a shared flat in 2010, three friends and the question of why there are no ergonomic school bags for children. Since 2018, the start-up has no longer been called Fond of Bags, but Fond of. The founders are Oliver Steinki, Florian Michajlezko and Sven-Oliver Pink. Fond of has been profitable since its second year and is still owned by the founders. The three are now also investors in High-Tech Gründerfonds and have set up an accelerator program. It is located in "Germany's most digital office building" in Cologne called "The Ship".