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Lone Fønss Schrøder is in talks for supervisory-board posts at Bilfinger Berger and Heidelberger Druckmaschinen. The two MDAX companies have neither confirmed nor denied this. At the Heidelbergers, Supervisory Board Chairman Mark Woessner is to leave the body soon because he has reached 72, the age limit. Who is to succeed him is not officially known.
After the AGM Steven Holland will be taking the lead at Brenntag. The Acting Chief Operating Officer of the Mühlheim chemical distributor since 2009, he joined the company with the acquisition of Albion Chemical Group in 2006, and on 22 June is to succeed the retiring Stephen Clark, who will then replace Thomas Weinmann on the Supervisory Board. The majority shareholder Brachem Acquisition, which holds 36 percent of Brenntag, wants a direct change, thus triggering a corresponding opening clause and avoiding the two-year cooling-off period. A new board member, with immediate effect, is William Fidler. The 63-year-old manager is currently responsible for North American business. In future he will be responsible for Latin America as well.
Fritz Oesterle is leaving prematurely in late June as CEO of the Celesio Group in Stuttgart. Officially, he departs on the best of terms with the Supervisory Board after more than twelve years in his post, the pharmaceutical wholesalers announced on 16 March. A doctor of law, his contract ran until 2013. Oesterle had lost his post on the board at Haniel in 2009. At Celesio Haniel holds 54.6 percent.
By 1 September, Stefan Borchert will occupy the vacant Patient and Consumer Solutions portfolio at Celesio. It covers the international pharmacy business of the pharmaceutical wholesaler, with over 2,300 locations. This includes Lloydspharmacy and DocMorris. The 41-year-old has long-standing strategic and operational experience in international retailing.
Petraea Heynike is to be the second woman next to Sari Baldauf on the Supervisory Board of Daimler. The South African woman has been nominated for election for five years. Heynike is to resign her offices at the Nestlé Group on 1 May. After about 13 years Manfred Schneider, whose term of office expires at the end of the AGM on 13 April, is leaving the Supervisory Board.
For Peter Job, who at the end of the next shareholder meeting retires by rotation, Deutsche Bank is proposing Katherine Garrett-Cox for election to the Supervisory Board at the Annual General Meeting on 26 May. With the arrival of the Alliance Trust CEO, seven out of 20 members of the Bank’s Supervisory Board, including the five employee representatives, would be female, bringing the women’s quota to 35 percent.
Deutsche Post announced on 9 March that the Supervisory Board had nominated Roger Crook as new Group Board Member responsible for the DHL Global Forwarding, Freight sector. The 54-year-old previously led the group’s DHL Express Asia Pacific, Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa sector, and replaces Hermann Ude, who left early “by the best of mutual consent” on 31 March.
At the same time as extending the contract for Helmut Ullrich, the appointment of Lars Wittan as a board member of Deutsches Wohnen was announced. Wittan is to be built up as the successor to the former chief financial officer through the end of Ullrich's contract at the end of 2012, and move to the Board on 1 October. His contract runs until September 2014.
Two new Supervisory Board members are in future to monitor the further course of the E.ON board. The outgoing Supervisory Board members of the energy company are to be replaced by Baroness Denise Kingsmill, a member of the British House of Lords, and Deutsche Telekom CEO Rene Obermann. The lawyer and the German manager are to be elected to the Supervisory Board at the AGM on 5 May, said Germany’s largest utility on 9 March. The British aristocrat and the Telekom CEO replace Ulrich Hartmann and Wilhelm Simson, who, as announced in December 2010, will resign at the Annual Meeting. The office of Chairman is to be taken over from Hartmann by the former head of the pharmaceutical company Bayer, Werner Wofenning.
Jean E. Spence is to join the Supervisory Board of GEA Group. The top manager of Kraft Foods is proposed for election on 21 April, as the Bochum plant engineers announced on 10 March in the invitation to the Annual General Meeting. She is in charge of research, development and quality assurance there. The employee side had already proposed Eva Maria Kerkemeier as a member of the supervisory body.
Gigaset has expanded its Board to two members. The Supervisory Board had named Alexander Blum, who has been working at the former Siemens brand since 2008, CFO on 30 March. He is to flank former sole board member Maik Brockmann. Besides the financial side, Blum, at the cordless phone manufacturers for three years now, will be in charge of human resources and investor relations.
Peter Noé, member of the Executive Board of Hochtief since February 2002, is leaving the construction group on 10 September. The Doctor of Business Administration has made use of the special termination right triggered by ACS crossing the 30 percent investment threshold, which according to the annual report entitles him to at least two and a half years’ salary.
As the invitation to the AGM on 12 May in Essen shows, the current Hochtief Supervisory Board, led by Detlev Bremkamp, is proposing an amendment for the next five-year period. As representative of the second major shareholder, Qatar, Yousuf Al Hammadi is to replace current Supervisory Board Member Tilman Todenhöfer. The Emirate of Qatar claims that seat. ACS has also presented its own list for a vote by written procedure. Then Bremkamp would lose his job. The list does not contains a proposal for a new chairman.
The Supervisory Board of Linde has with immediate effect appointed Sanjiv Lamba as a new member of the Board. The 46-year-old Indian is in charge, from Singapore, of the future of the company’s gas business in Greater China, South and East Asia and the South Pacific region. He is also responsible for the Asian joint ventures and for the electronic gases product area.
As the invitation to the shareholders’ meeting of Metro on 6 May shows, Marie-Christine Lombard resigned as of 28 March. Professor Ann-Kristin Achleitner is to move to the Supervisory Board of the retail group as substitute for the French TNT manager. For Achleitner, who is also nominated to the Supervisory Board of Linde, it would be the first supervisory post at a German corporation.
Annika Falkengren is to become a supervisor at the Munich Reinsurance Company. As a press release of the world's largest reinsurer states, the Supervisory Board decided at its meeting on 9 March to propose the 48-year-old SEB boss to the Supervisory Board for election at the next Annual General Meeting on 20 April. The CEO of the Swedish banking giant will replace Thomas Wellauer.
At Qiagen, two internationally recognized leaders in life-science research and medicine are to come onto the Supervisory Board. Shareholders are to vote at the Annual General Meeting on 30 June 2011 on the proposal to elect Vera Kallmeyer and Elizabeth E. Tallett to the Supervisory Board and to renew all six existing Supervisory Board members. Their experience in the health sector and in academic research and their extensive knowledge of the industry will be of great value in further expanding our leading position in molecular sample and assay technologies for academic research, applied testing and clinical diagnosis, said Prof. Detlev H. Rieske, Supervisory Board chair and a founder of Qiagen.
As the Essen DAX company RWE announced, two new members are to be drafted into the Supervisory Board on the shareholder side. Ullrich Sierau (SPD) is to follow the former mayor of Dortmund, Gerhard Lange Meyer (SPD), on the Supervisory Board of the group for a good ten years,. For Essen’s previous mayor Wolfgang Reiniger (CDU), Roger Graef (CDU), also in the management of the Verband der kommunalen RWE-Aktionäre [Association of municipal RWE shareholders] GmbH, is to become the new Supervisory Board member. This is shown by the invitation of the energy company to the next Annual General Meeting on 20 April, at which the former Bayer CEO Manfred Schneider (72) is standing for re-election as Supervisory Board chairman. On the election of the municipal representatives, there are counter-motions from Hermes, Legal & General and DSW.
Wolfgang Dehen has left the Siemens Management Board, and on 1 April became the first CEO of Osram GmbH. This subsidiary, independent in technology and sales, is to be brought onto the stock market in the autumn. The Supervisory Board decided at an extraordinary meeting on 28 March to stay involved in Osram long-term as an anchor shareholder. The successor to the 56-year-old as head of the energy sector is Michael Süß, who at the Division of Fossil Power Generation is already at the top of the most profitable segment of the industry. To participate as a leader in growth and technology trends related to the establishment and renewal of urban infrastructure in developed and emerging countries, Siemens also founded the "infrastructure and cities" sector. This newly created fourth sector is from October to be headed by 46-year-old chief strategist Roland Busch, appointed to the Board, like Klaus Helmrich, on 1 April. The current head of the division of drive technology takes over the board sector of technology. In the course of organizational change, the board is being expanded from eight to ten divisions.
With Annika Falkengren, for the first time a woman is to join the Supervisory Board of Volkswagen, on the capital side. For the election of the supervisory body of the Wolfsburgers, scheduled for 3 May, the head of the Swedish SEB bank is proposed. This was decided by the nomination committee and the Supervisory Board at a single meeting. Hans Michael Gaul is to depart on a rotational basis.