Campus

DAI funds the government committee

The three candidates presented by Deutscher Corporate Governance Kodex government committee for appointment to its board have been confirmed by the Minister of Justice of Chancellor Merkel’s second term. According to Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger (FDP Liberal Party) Joachim Faber, chairman of the supervisory board of Deutsche Boerse, Thomas Kremer, a board-member of Deutsche Telekom with responsibility for privacy, legal affairs and compliance, and Michael Mertin, CEO of Jenoptik will carry out their committee duties with propriety.

Manfred Gentz has been officially appointed new chairman. The announcement dates back to August (see VIP sight, Corner August 2013), when Gentz had been identified as the successor to Klaus-Peter Müller who was on his way out. Former board member of DaimlerChrysler , former chairman of the Deutsche Börse supervisory board and chairman of the management board of the Swiss finance company Zurich Financial Services. Gentz is said to have a wealth of experience in managing and monitoring companies. The Deutsche Juristinnenbund (Union of German women jurists) were critical of this decision for its break with the politically driven campaign to appoint more women to top positions in the private sector. In addition to bringing staff numbers up to par, another issue tackled was the question of the new cost apportionment and the organizational support of the governmental committee. At an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting of the Deutsches Aktieninstitut (DAI) on September 17 in Frankfurt a sizeable majority voted to move the government committee headquarters to DAI premises.  Hans-Martin Buhlmann, VIP eV, requested more availability for active cooperation by investors, which in addition to voting on the year-end accounts, would benefit the supreme good of democracy.

One of Gentz’s priorities was to devise a new way of apportioning costs and organizational support for the committee. Up to now, committee expenses have been shouldered by the two groups with the two previous presidents heading the respective supervisory boards.

TecDAx in the female gender: More enhanced career prospects than in the S- or MDax

There is a big surprise awaiting those who thought that technological companies were a male-only domain. 12 percent of members of supervisory or management boards of TecDax listed companies are women according to a survey on 2012 conducted by the human resource consultancy agency Dwight Cribb. The number of women in the technology index beats both SDax and MDax, in which a mere one in ten executive is female. According to the survey, the five companies with most women on the boards are Bechtle, Sartorius, Jenoptik, Software AG and Freenet. If the survey were extended to include this year, the top slot would probably be filled by Telefonica in which 44% of jobs are held by women. The telecommunication group, though, has only been listed in TecDax since March 2013.