GERMAN Rail’s (DB) infrastructure management division DB Network will have a new CEO from this month.

With more than 46,000 employees, DB Network is responsible for managing 33,400km of railway, including operational facilities, and on average 51,000 trains run on its infrastructure each day.

At an extraordinary meeting, the DB Network supervisory board appointed 40-year-old Dr Philipp Nagl to the role of CEO and chairman of the executive board, beginning on August 15. The previous chairman, 58-year-old Mr Frank Sennhenn – who has held the post for nine years, having previously held the chairmanship of the regional and commuter train services division DB Regio from 2009-13 - will be taking early retirement.

“On behalf of my colleagues, I would like to expressly thank Frank Senhenn for his good and always trusting cooperation,” says Mr Berthold Huber, chairman of the supervisory board. “We wish him all the best for the coming time. At the same time, I am very pleased that in Philipp Nagl we have been able to recruit a profound railway expert as his successor. I am certain that DB Network will benefit significantly from this generational change.”

Austrian-born Nagl has been a production director at passenger operator DB Long Distance since 2018, having previously held various other positions including timetable and traffic control manager. He was also responsible for corporate development at Austrian Federal Railways (ÖBB).

“I am really looking forward to the new challenge,” says Nagl. “I am a railwayman through and through and I want to get people excited about railways – efficient infrastructure is the core of this. That is what motivates me in particular in my new role.”