Only 2.5 years into his reign as Lidl Germany CEO, Marin Dokozic has left the company, the third high-profile departure in a year’s time. Lidl is also feeling the increased heat from competitor Aldi in its home territory.
Aldi steals market share from Lidl
Lidl Germany is in turmoil. Sven Seidel immediately vacated his position as group CEO a year ago after “strategy disagreements”. It was rumoured the all-powerful Klaus Gehrig, who runs parent company Schwarz Group, was unhappy with Seidel because of his apparent lack of cost management. Within six months, Lidl’s e-commerce director left after Gehrig dialed back Lidl’s digital plans a lot.
Now, Lidl Germany’s CEO, Marin Dokozic, has left without any official reason for his departure. WirtschaftsWoche did receive confidential results from market research firm GfK that show that Lidl is losing market share to Aldi in its most important market – with 3,200 stores and an annual 20.4 billion euro turnover. Its competitor is clearly showing greater growth and is also fully focused on modern stores, more name brands and more advertising. That is a different situation to Belgium, where Lidl has shown larger growth than Aldi for several years.
Matthias Oppitz, the former Lidl Switzerland CEO, will now replace Dokozic.
