USU Elevates Marketing to Board Level with Mirjam Hermann as CMO.
USU has appointed Mirjam Hermann as Chief Marketing Officer, effective April 1, 2026. With the move, the software and services company places marketing at the highest level of its executive structure, alongside CEO Dr. Benjamin Strehl, CFO An Bui, and CPTO Matthias Grabellus.
Hermann is not new to USU’s leadership circles. She previously held the position of Vice President Marketing, where she shaped the company’s strategic positioning and pushed its international brand presence forward. Her expanded remit now also covers the Business Development division, including the Sales Automation and Sales Development teams — a configuration that signals USU’s intent to draw a tighter line between market intelligence and revenue execution.
The appointment reflects a broader structural shift at USU. By anchoring marketing within the executive team, the company is bridging disciplines that have historically operated in parallel: product management, product development, marketing, and sales now form a more closely coordinated value chain. The stated ambition is captured in USU’s internal guiding principle, *”empowered by understanding”* — the idea that customer insight should be embedded in every stage of strategy, innovation, and portfolio development, rather than applied after the fact.
USU frames customer focus not as a communications posture but as a measurable operational commitment. Independent studies by the *Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung* and *Süddeutsche Zeitung* placed the company among benchmark performers in customer service, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty. In international analyst evaluations and peer reviews, USU customers consistently point to the company’s responsiveness as a defining characteristic. The company also reports a notably low customer churn rate — a metric that tends to reflect the depth of product-market fit more honestly than most marketing indicators.
In her own words, Hermann identifies customer focus as a structural growth factor, not a soft differentiator. “By establishing the CMO role within the executive team, we are bringing our company even closer to our customers,” she said. “We want to gain an even deeper understanding of our customers’ needs and how our solutions can best support them in achieving their goals.”
To that end, Hermann is prioritising direct dialogue over indirect insight. USU will host two *InTouch* events — in Stuttgart and Dortmund — designed to give the company early visibility into customer requirements before they become problems or missed opportunities.
Dr. Strehl described the appointment as a forward-looking move grounded in Hermann’s track record. “With more than 20 years of international leadership experience in marketing, product management and business development, Mirjam is the right fit for this position,” he said, pointing to her background in building digital marketing organisations and her capabilities in demand generation, brand development, and transformation processes.
The combination of strategic clarity and agile methodology, Strehl argued, positions Hermann to deliver on USU’s core commitment: creating measurable added value for customers in their day-to-day operations.
With marketing now represented at the executive table, USU is placing a structural bet that closer alignment between customer understanding and company strategy is not just a cultural aspiration — it is a competitive lever.
Dr. Jakob Jung is Editor-in-Chief of Security Storage and Channel Germany. He has been working in IT journalism for more than 20 years. His career includes Computer Reseller News, Heise Resale, Informationweek, Techtarget (storage and data center) and ChannelBiz. He also freelances for numerous IT publications, including Computerwoche, Channelpartner, IT-Business, Storage-Insider and ZDnet. His main topics are channel, storage, security, data center, ERP and CRM.
Contact via Mail: jakob.jung@security-storage-und-channel-germany.de