People

Germany: ThyssenKrupp has appointed Martina Merz as its chief executive officer (CEO). The current chairwoman of the supervisory board will be delegated to the group executive board for a maximum period of 12 months after which she will return to the supervisory board. Guido Kerkhoff, the current CEO, has agreed to leave the post by mutual agreement.

In addition, the supervisory board has appointed Klaus Keysberg to the executive board of ThyssenKrupp where he will be responsible for the materials businesses on the group executive board. He has held various positions at ThyssenKrupp since 1996 and has been CEO of the Business Area Materials Services since the beginning of 2019. He will continue to hold this position until a successor is appointed.

Siegfried Russwurm will succeed Martina Merz as the head of the supervisory board. The former Siemens executive board member has been a member of the supervisory board since April 2019.

US: Solidia Technologies has appointed Jules Kortenhorst to its board of directors. Kortenhorst is currently the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI). Prior to this he was the founding CEO of the European Climate Foundation (ECF) and he also served as a member of the Dutch parliament for the Christian Democratic Party.

Kortenhorst was the CEO for International Operations of ClientLogic Corporation and he worked for almost 10 years for Royal Dutch Shell, including managing director at Shell Bulgaria. He began his career as an analyst at McKinsey & Co.

He currently serves on the Energy Transition Commission and is the co-chair of the WEF Global Future Council on Energy. He also is a non-executive board member of the Energy Web Foundation and an advisory board member of Land Life Company. He holds an MBA from Harvard and a Master’s in Economics from Erasmus University, Netherlands.

South Africa: PPC has appointed the former Holcim Philippines chief operating officer and Eastern Europe regional CEO Roland Van Wijnen to the position of CEO. Van Wijnen, who holds a master’s degree from the University of Twente, will take over control of the company’s 6.2Mt/yr total integrated capacity across South Africa and Zimbabwe from Johannes Theodorus Claassen on 1 October 2019.

Switzerland: LafargeHolcim’s executive committee has taken on Magali Anderson in the newly-created role of Chief Sustainability Officer. Anderson is a mechanical engineer with extensive managerial and functional experience who joined LafargeHolcim in 2016 as its Head of Health and Safety. LafargeHolcim CEO Jan Jensich has stated that the appointment “will accelerate LafargeHolcim’s vision of running its operations with zero harm to people and the environment.”

Paraguay: Industria Nacional del Cemento (INC) has appointed Ernesto Julián Benítez Petters as president. In his inauguration speech, he expressed his intention to continue the work of his predecessor for the company as a pillar of the Paraguayan economy.