After 30 years at Kosmos, Heiko Windfelder is retiring. The senior executive has a long and storied history within the tabletop space, including selling and promoting the most beloved games ever.
Heiko Windfelder's Retirement Announcement
According to a report from Board Game Wire, Heiko Windfelder is retiring from Kosmos a mere two years after long-time managing director Michael Fleissner retired. When this occ urred, operational management fell to Windfelder alongside Thilan Tran and Matthias Kienzle. Both Tran and Kienzle will continue managing in a dual leadership position.
Both Tran and Kienzle issued the following statement regarding Windfelder's retirement:
“Over the past 30 years, Kosmos has developed into the highest-selling games publisher in the field of family and adult games.
“During this time, Heiko Windfelder has played a very influential role in shaping the fortunes of the company.
“With his passion for special stories, his creativity and his feel for special titles and exceptional authors, he has made a significant contribution to leading the publishing house to this pole position.
“For this, we thank him from the bottom of our hearts on behalf of the management and the entire Kosmos team.”
When Heiko Windfelder joined Kosmos in 1995, it was the same year they published Catan, one of the most popular board games in the business with over 45 million copies sold, not counting certain prestige artisanal component sets.
A second popular board game series nurtured by Windfelder was the Exit family series. This is a series of small box escape room board games. Each entry is themed around a different scenario like a sunken ship, a Sherlock Holmes mystery, and even an officially licensed Lord of the Rings scenario where you must escape the temptations of The One Ring.
Afterwards, Windfelder served as program manager with responsibility for the company's toy and game lines. These included The Crew, Imhotep, and the Spiel des Jahres winning Sky Team.
