People
In searching for a new member of the management board with responsibility for production, BMW came up with the right man and, in line with tradition, it found him among its own ranks. On May 13, Oliver Zipse will join the management board of the Munich-based group and will receive the sceptre of production. Zipse, a 51-year-old mechanical engineer will take over from Harald Krüger who, as was decided in December 2014, will succeed Norbert Reithofer with effect from the shareholders’ meeting on May 13. The Chair of the Supervisory Board, Prof. Joachim Milberg together with Wolfgang Mayrhuber decided in concert with the Supervisory Board to resign their mandates to the Board with effect from the end of the shareholders’ meeting. The Supervisory Board will present Simone Menne, presently on the management board of Deutsche Lufthansa and prospective Supervisory Board candidate together with Reithofer.
Krombacher partner Petra Schadeberg-Hermann and Nikolaus von Bomhard, management board chair of Munich Re, will leave the Supervisory Board of Commerzbank on April 30. The shareholders’ meeting of Germany’s second largest bank is being called upon to endorse the appointment to it of two women. The candidates being presented are Sabine U. Dietriche and Anja Mikus. Dietriche is on the board of management board of BP Europe. Mikus is presently CIO and head of investment strategy in investment company Arabesque. Her role in the CoBa Supervisory Board will be to represent the State of Germany which, throughout the financial crunch, had invested several thousand million Euros to save the bank. The State is currently represented by Bomhard and BDI managing director Markus Kerber.
Deutsche Annington Immobilien’s takeover of GAGFAH means that it needs more controllers – the number of Supervisory Board members will have to rise from 9 to 12, Former head of GAGFAH board of management, Gerhard Zeiler, is one of the more famous new entries; Daniel Just, managing director of Bayerische Versorgungskammer and vice chair proxy of the Supervisory Board of the Deutsche Bank real estate subsidiary Rreef Investment should also be appointed. Another candidate is Hendrik Jellema, chair of the management board of Stiftung Berliner Leben part of Berlin-based group Gewobag. The proposals have been prepared for the agenda of the shareholders meeting to be held on April 30. Deutsche Annington shareholders will be called upon to vote in Düsseldorf on the proposed new name of “Vonovia”. The idea of presenting Zeiler, Jellema and Just as members of the Supervisory Board of the new nascent colossus had already arisen when shareholders of Deutsche Annington Immobilien made their takeover bid to GAGFAH shareholders. The three resigned from their posts on the GAGFAH board of management on March 16.
As was decided by the 2014 shareholders’ meeting, there will be cuts on May 13 lowering the number of seats on the Deutsche Börse Supervisory Board from 18 to 12 Of these 12, 8 will represent the shareholders and 4 the employees. The best known member stepping down is without doubt Friedrich Merz. The other members also leaving the Supervisory Board are David Krell, Richard Hayden and Thomas Neiße.
From the agenda of the Deutsche Lufthansa shareholders’ meeting called for April 28, it would appear that Stephan Sturm will take the seat vacated by Jacques Aigrain. The chair of LCH Clearnet recently became Managing Director of Warburg Pincus. 54-year-old Sturm has been a member of the Lufthansa Supervisory Board since 2007. Currently CFO of Fresenius, Sturm won last year’s “Chief Financial Officer of the Year” award.
Ute Gerbaulet is expected to join the Supervisory Board of GERRY WEBER International, a move that will strengthen rapprochement between the womenswear manufacturer and another family-run concern. Capital market expert Gerbaulet sits on the extended board of management of Bankhaus Lampe, a private banking concern. The former CFO of the Ernst F. Schröder group has for a number of years been head of the GERRY WEBER International Supervisory Board and is expected to be reconfirmed during the shareholders’ meeting set for April 16. Alfred Thomas Bayard is standing for election to the Supervisory Board. The Swiss fashion businessman purchases merchandise from GERRY WEBER International through the Mode Bayard and Gerry Weber Switzerland subsidiary companies which he then distributes along with other griffes through his sales networks in Switzerland. In future, the Supervisory Board should be enlarged from six to twelve members.
K+S has added voting of two new members to the Supervisory Board to the agenda of the upcoming shareholders’ meeting set for May 12. The second candidate standing alongside Andrea Kreimeyer, who sits on the management board of BASF, is Philip Freiherr von dem Bussche who, for many years, was the spokesperson of the board of management of KWS Saat. Kreimeyer has been on the management board of BASF, of which the manufacturer of fertilizer was once a subsidiary, since 2003. After the expiry of her contract with the board of management, expected to be concurrent with the conclusion of the shareholders’ meeting set for April 30, the biologist is hoping to retire. Von dem Bussche was Chair of the Deutsche Landwirtschafts gesellschaft for a number of years and gained a reputation as an expert on world agricultural economics. The two have no mandates on any other Supervisory Boards. Bern Malmström and Rudolf Müller are standing down from their positions as of the end of the shareholders’ meeting.
Volker Kronseder has announced his intention to quit the management board of KROES. After a career on the management board spanning over 26 years, 20 of which as Chair, Kronseder would now like to move on to the Supervisory Board. On March 18, the MDax-listed company announced that he would be succeeded by current CFO Christoph Klenk. The Supervisory Board, instead decided to replace him with an outsider whose name will be announced as soon as the person concerned has agreed the date and conditions of resignation with his/her current employer.
After a cooling-off period of one year, the Supervisory Board of LANXESS has drawn further conclusions at personnel level regarding the strategic errors made under the board of management chairmanship of Axel Heitmann. The chemicals manufacturer has announced further changes at top management level. At the upcoming shareholders’ meeting set for May 13, the Supervisory Board will propose Lawrence A. Rosen, member of management board of Deutsche Post, and Matthias Wolfgruber, Chair of the management board of Altana, as candidates to the Supervisory Board. Rainer Laufs and Robert J. Koehler will resign their posts on the Supervisory Board at the end of their current term of office. The Chair of the Supervisory Board will continue to be Rolf Stromberg. Michael Pontzen, up till now head controller of the group, joined the board of management as CFO on April 1. His predecessor Bernard Düttmann resigned from the company at the end of March to ‘take up the gauntlet of new professional challenges’. Düttman joined LANXESS in 2011 from Beierdsdorf replacing Matthias Zachert, who had joined Merck.
Ulrike Friese-Dormann the lawyer is tipped to join the Supervisory Board of Leoni. On the departure of Wilhelm Wessels on 31 December 2014, Axel Markus joined the Board on 1 January 2015 to represent the interests of the shareholders. Now, Ms. Friese–Dormann is succeeding Markus who has announced his intention of quitting his position at the end of the next shareholders’ meeting set for May 7.
Bernd Hirsch is resigning from Symrise of his own volition. The reasons behind his decision not to extend his contract with the the perfume and aroma manufacturer beyond its December 31 expiry date are wholly personal according to a company communiqué of March 6. Hirsch confirms that he will continue to carry out his duties in Symrise until then. The Supervisory Board is expected to move swiftly to appoint a successor.
On February 27, VOLKSWAGEN officially announced that it had invited Matthias Müller to join the group’s board of management. In actual fact, the head of Porsche has been on Wolfsburg’s board of management with his 12 brand names since March, Herbert Diess will thus become official on the Volkswagen board of management and head of the Volkswagen brand three months earlier than planned. Shifting these dates forward was made possible by an agreement that the executive reached with BMW.
Drillisch: New faces in the boardroom
Effective April 1 TecDax-listed Drillisch AG, has a new CFO, André Driesen, who previously headed the accounts department and was accounts and financial proxy. He is now on the management board together with Paschalis and Vlasios Choulidis with responsibility for the new area of Finance.
Driesen has been with the mobile phone company since 2003 and in addition to his functions in the company’s finance, he was administrator in charge of a number of companies within the group, including Drillisch Telecom GmbH.
Jenoptik: no let-up
Jenoptik AG, the optical systems and technology specialist, has secured the appointment to CFO of former Homag CFO, Hans-Dieter Schuhmacher. Tec-Dax-listed Jenokptik’s contract with his predecessor Rüdiger Andreas Günther had expired at the end of March and at the end of last year Günther announced his intention of not extending it. Günther’s career in Jenoptik began in 2012 as CFO, and he ushered in many transactions and initiatives to harmonize the management of resources at group level.
Schumacher joined Jenoptik as CFO in April, from the Homag Group AG where he had been head of finance, IT and human resources since 2011. Before that he had been CFO in Sto AG.
R. Stahl: family fealty
The current Chair of the Supervisory Board of this company specialised in explosion prevention will stand down from his post at the end of the shareholders’ meeting scheduled for May 22. Hans-VolkerStahl, aged 68, will quit the body after 22 years. At the end of February, those in control of the Prime Standard-listed company voted in favour of the candidacy for the chairmanship of Heiko Stallbörger. Stallbörger, an engineer, has been on the board of R. Stahl AG since 2013 and has a 25-year-long connection with the company’s founding family. The decision in his favour was motivated with an eye toward continuity of the family’s presence in the generation renewal in the Supervisory Board. The outgoing Chair Hans-Volker Stahl announced his intention of becoming a private investor, and will maintain his links with the company as a shareholder.