PAYBACK strengthens management team

Munich – PAYBACK GmbH, the operating company of Germany's largest bonus programme PAYBACK, has strengthened its management team: as of 1 April 2009, Walter Lukner (46) will be representing the company and the PAYBACK programme with its 25 renowned trade partners as the Senior Manager for Partner Management. This means that in future he will be responsible for complete management of the existing product portfolio with companies such as Aral, Apollo-Optik, dm-drogerie markt, Galeria Kaufhof, real,- and WMF. "Walter Lukner has many years of experience in marketing and loyalty management and has already developed excellent personal contacts with all PAYBACK cooperation partners through his work at Aral," says PAYBACK CEO Bernhard Brugger. Before arriving at PAYBACK GmbH, Lukner was a manager in the petroleum industry for twenty years – first in Vienna for Mobil Oil and then in London. After the BP / Mobil Oil merger, he was responsible for merging the two petrol station networks in Austria. As one of his next career steps, he took over management of the entire IT merger for all European countries in the petrol station sector after the acquisition of Aral. From 2004 to 2006, Lukner was the Marketing Manager for BP and Aral in Germany, Luxembourg and Switzerland, developing a loyalty programme over this period that was implemented successfully in May 2006 through PAYBACK. The most recent position Lukner held with BP/Aral was "European Loyalty and Cards Strategy Manager”, developing a Europe-wide strategy for the company in the Loyalty, Cards Issuance and Cards Acceptance sector. Born in Vienna, Lukner is married with two sons.