Many of Mittelbach’s long-time friends and colleagues in the industry attended the farewell ceremony. Mittelbach, who had been CEO of IFRA prior to the July 2009 merger, transformed IFRA from a print-centric organisation to one focused on multimedia and media convergence. He greatly expanded IFRA's research activities on the future of the news business.

Mittelbach took over the helm at the IFRA headquarters in Darmstadt, Germany, in 2001 as well as the network of IFRA affiliates and representations that has been built up worldwide in recent years. His efforts to expand IFRA’s know-how had a considerable impact in India and Russia, and throughout Asia and the Middle East.

"Reiner has provided exceptional service to the newspaper industry," said Gavin O'Reilly, President of WAN-IFRA. "His contributions to the merger between IFRA and WAN helped set the direction of the new organisation, to the benefit of the entire industry. WAN-IFRA thanks Reiner for his body of work and we wish him well in his future endeavours."

He began his career in 1986 with Unilever in their packaging group 4P. After several positions in sales and marketing, he joined another packaging company called Menshen GmbH & Co KG in 1994 as their marketing and sales director.

Two years later, he became involved with the graphic arts industry for the first time by joining Polar-Mohr, the manufacturer of cutting systems, as their sales director for a brief period before becoming their marketing and sales director.

Two and a half years later, he moved to Heidelberger Druckmaschinen AG, where he held the position of Speedmaster sales director for Europe and North America for one year before he joined the management team of Heidelberg's business unit Finishing as senior vice president marketing.