About Manager Magazin

Manager Magazin

Manager Magazin (own spelling manager magazin) is a monthly German business magazine published since 1 November 1971, part of the Spiegel Group. Based in Hamburg and published by the manager magazin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, it focuses on corporate reporting and business administration for professional decision-makers. With a sold circulation of 86,308 copies (IVW 1/2026) and a reach of 0.58 million readers, it is the Spiegel Group's business-magazine flagship — complemented by its sister publication Harvard Business Manager, the German licensed edition of the Harvard Business Review, and by the rankings and prizes that have made it an institution. Its editor-in-chief is Isabell Hülsen, who took over in 2024 after leading roles at Der Spiegel. The magazine's digital home is manager-magazin.de.

Overview

Manager Magazin targets professional decision-makers and managers in Germany with business news, data, and background information across all economic areas — from corporate strategy and executive appointments to mergers, markets, and management practice. Its editorial stance is liberal, and its journalism is built around deep corporate reporting — company analyses, executive portraits, and investigations into the workings of German and international business — combined with the service journalism of its rankings and prizes. The publishing company also publishes Harvard Business Manager, extending the brand family into management theory and practice.

History

The magazine appears since November 1971 in the Manager Magazin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH, founded in September 1970, in which the Rudolf Augstein GmbH and — since 2022 — the RM Hamburg Holding GmbH are involved. From 1986 to 2022 the publisher Gruner + Jahr held 24.9 percent, its shares transferred to RM Hamburg Holding GmbH in 2022. Until 1973 the American publisher McGraw-Hill held 49 percent of the magazine — a transatlantic parentage that reflected the title's ambition to bring American-style business journalism to Germany. Hans Detlev Becker — Der Spiegel's editor-in-chief from 1959 to 1961, publishing director from 1962, and a defining figure of the early Spiegel as Rudolf Augstein's "second man" — led the publishing house as managing director from 1971 to 1981; subsequent publishing directors included Heinz Gerhardt (1982–2002), Philipp Busch (2002–2007), Michael Plasse (2011–2017), and, since 2021, Thomas Hass and Jennifer Lachman.

The editors-in-chief trace the magazine's journalistic generations: Klaus Recht (1971), Leo Brawand (1971–1981), Werner Funk (1981–1985), Dieter Piel (1985–1987), Ulrich Blecke (1987–1991), Winfried Wilhelm (1991–1992), Peter Christ (1992–1994), Wolfgang Kaden (1994–2003), Arno Balzer (2003–2013), Steffen Klusmann (2013–2018), Sven Oliver Clausen and Martin Noé (2018–2022), Clausen alone (2022–2024), and since 2024 Isabell Hülsen, who came from Der Spiegel.

International expansion came in 2004 with two licensed editions in Hungary and Poland. The Hungarian edition was published in licence from 2007 to 2020 by the Hungarian subsidiary of Axel Springer; the Polish sister publication was discontinued at the end of 2008. The Manager Lounge — a former subsidiary of the publishing company and a network for executives meeting defined position and income requirements — was sold in 2021.

Content and Profile

Manager Magazin covers business news with an emphasis on companies: corporate strategies, executive decisions, mergers and acquisitions, and the people who run Germany's largest enterprises. Its ranking lists are among its best-known products: the Good Company Ranking, in which 80 large European companies are tested for social compatibility (since 2005); the list of the 500 richest Germans (since 2000), expanded in 2017 to the 1,001 richest Germans; the Städteranking, in which economic geographers from the University of Mannheim test 58 European cities on "living and career conditions for managers"; the Hochschulranking (1996 and 1999); and the Kreativ-Index, which annually evaluates the performance of German agencies in advertising competitions (since 2003). The magazine's liberal stance and its focus on professional decision-makers distinguish it from the broader-audience business weeklies.

The magazine also confers its own honours. The Hall of Fame, created in 1992, annually recognises one or two German personalities from economics or industry; the Manager of the Year has been elected since 1995. Since 2009, scientists whose lifetime achievements have made outstanding contributions to research — and thus made Germany more competitive as a business location — have been inducted into the Hall of Fame of German Research. Since 2015 the magazine has, in cooperation with the Boston Consulting Group, named the most influential German businesswomen, designating a prima inter pares each year; until 2013 it also awarded the prize for the best annual report under the academic direction of Jörg Baetge.

The sister publication Harvard Business Manager (HBM) is the German licensed edition of the American Harvard Business Review, published by the same Verlagsgesellschaft within the Spiegel Group. Appearing since 1979 as Harvard Manager and renamed Harvard Business Manager in 1992, it publishes selected translated articles from the American original alongside contributions by German-speaking management authors, describing itself as a journalistically independent magazine for practical management topics. Its sold circulation is 22,784 copies (IVW 4/2025) — up 118.8 percent since 1998, a remarkable growth story in a shrinking print market — under editor-in-chief Gesine Braun, with the same managing directors, Thomas Hass and Jennifer Lachman. Together, manager magazin and HBM cover the full arc from business news to management science.

Circulation and Audience

Manager Magazin's sold circulation is 86,308 copies (IVW 1/2026), with distributed circulation of 86,761 and a reach of 0.58 million readers (MA 2024 I). That is a decline of 28.9 percent since 1998 — the familiar print-magazine trajectory — though the title reported 88,793 sold copies in 2025, and the premium digital subscription with Economist content represents a second revenue pillar. The audience is what it has always been: professional decision-makers and managers, the executive tier of German business life, reached in print, in the browser-based web app, and in the mobile apps.

Ownership

Manager Magazin is published by the manager magazin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH of Hamburg, in which the Rudolf Augstein GmbH and — since 2022 — the RM Hamburg Holding GmbH are involved; from 1986 to 2022 Gruner + Jahr held 24.9 percent before its shares were transferred to RM Hamburg Holding. The Spiegel Group — the Hamburg publishing house built around Der Spiegel, founded by Rudolf Augstein in 1947 — provides the corporate home: a house whose investigative tradition and editorial independence shape the expectations placed on its business title. The same Verlagsgesellschaft publishes the monthly Harvard Business Manager. The magazine's ISSN is 0341-4418.

Digital Presence

The magazine's digital home is manager-magazin.de, online since 1998, carrying daily business news alongside the monthly magazine's reporting. Since September 2011 the magazine has also appeared as a digital edition in a browser-based web app; apps for the website followed in 2015. Since 2018 a paid premium subscription has been offered, which also makes texts from the British weekly The Economist available — a cooperation that underlines the title's international orientation and gives subscribers two of the world's leading business publications in one package. The website shares the editorial team and brand of the print magazine, extending its corporate-reporting franchise into continuous digital coverage. Harvard Business Manager is at harvardbusinessmanager.de. Since 1971, Manager Magazin has been the Spiegel Group's window on the executive suite — liberal, data-driven, and focused on the companies and people who run the German economy, from the first McGraw-Hill-backed issues to today's multi-platform business brand. The Hamburg publishing house and the manager magazin Verlagsgesellschaft mbH carry that tradition into the digital subscription era — the Spiegel Group's business title for the executive suite, in print and online.