Zalando co-CEO Rubin Ritter quits so his wife can pursue her career

A top executive at one of Europe’s largest e-commerce fashion companies is quitting so his wife’s career can take center stage.

Rubin Ritter intends to step down from his role as co-CEO at Zalando next year, two years before his contract was set to end, the company announced on Sunday.

After more than 11 years at Zalando, “I want to devote more time to my growing family,” Ritter said in a statement. “My wife and I have agreed that for the coming years, her professional ambitions should take priority,” he added.

The statement gave no further details about Ritter’s wife or her career. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ritter has led Zalando alongside two other co-CEOs — Robert Gentz and David Schneider — since 2010.

The Berlin-based company sells clothes and shoes from high street brands such as Adidas and Ralph Lauren online.

In the United States, the number of women in senior level positions is on the rise, according to the annual Women in the Workplace report from McKinsey & Company and LeanIn.Org. But women are also three times more likely to take on the majority of housework and childcare, and they worry more about how this will affect their performance at work, according to the report.

Germany lags several major economies when it comes to the proportion of senior executive positions held by women. According to the Swedish-German Allbright Foundation, a nonprofit, women make up just 12.8% of the management boards of Germany’s 30 largest listed companies. In an effort to change that, the country’s coalition government last month agreed to a mandatory quota for women on the boards of listed companies.

Zalando, which has about 36 million active customers and operates in 17 countries across Europe, pulled in nearly €1.85 billion ($2.2 billion) in revenue for the three months that ended in September.

— Hanna Ziady contributed to this report.