Marcel Pfeifer is to become the new Head of Subscription & Customer Operations at Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster

Marcel Pfeifer, an experienced sales professional, will take over as Head of Subscription & Customer Operations and head of the Sales Management department at Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster on 1 May 2026. He succeeds Paul Pankoke, who is retiring at the end of 2026 after 43 successful years with the company. In his new role, Pfeifer will report directly to the management board.

Marcel Pfeifer most recently served as Chief Subscription Officer at the Schwäbische Verlagsgruppe. Prior to that, he was responsible for the readership and user market for daily newspapers at Funke Medien, and had previously worked for Axel Springer. The 49-year-old has extensive experience in the sales and marketing of print and digital media products, as well as a proven understanding of organisational development, transformation and technology.

For the agricultural publishing house, subscriptions are by far the most significant distribution channel and the most important source of revenue. Specialist agricultural publications and market leaders such as *top agrar*, *profi* and *Wochenblatt* are available almost exclusively by subscription. Even the consumer publications Landlust, with just under 300,000 subscriptions, and essen & trinken derive their strength in the distribution market largely from subscriptions. In total, well over a million subscribers rely on Landwirtschaftsverlag for both print and digital content.

Malte Schwerdtfeger, managing director of Landwirtschaftsverlag, says: “In Marcel Pfeifer, we have secured an outstanding expert and thus the ideal successor to Paul Pankoke. With his in-depth understanding of the sales and management of analogue and digital media products, he will provide precisely the impetus and strategies that we at Landwirtschaftsverlag need in the future for our most important source of revenue: the reader market. I am very much looking forward to working with Marcel.

I would like to extend my warmest thanks to Paul Pankoke for his decades of successful work across various departments at the agricultural publishing house. He has made a significant contribution to our strength in the distribution market and has thus played a major role in the dynamic growth and financial success of our company.”

Marcel Pfeifer says: “Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster knows how to do sales. Being able to contribute my experience here means a great deal to me. I am very much looking forward to continuing on this path together with the team, whilst also developing new ideas to ensure the commercial success of our incredibly strong brands, whether in print or digital. The high journalistic quality of the publications inspires me to deliver equally strong results in sales.”

Press contact:
Malte Schwerdtfeger
Managing Director Landwirtschaftsverlag
Malte.Schwerdtfeger@lv.de
Tel. +49 175-7222864
Hülsebrockstr. 2–8, 48165 Münster

About the Landwirtschaftsverlag
The Landwirtschaftsverlag Münster group, with its media and service offerings in the fields of agriculture, food and rural life, ranks among the fifteen highest-turnover specialist publishers in Germany and the 100 largest German media companies, with a total turnover of around 130 million euros.
The group employs around 900 staff in Münster and at its other locations in Germany, Poland, Austria and the Netherlands.