OREANDA-NEWS. June 09, 2016. Karl-Ludwig Kley is the new Chairman of the E.ON SE Supervisory Board. The Annual Shareholders Meeting today appointed the former CEO of Merck KGaA to the Supervisory Board, which subsequently elected him to be its Chairman. Kley succeeds Werner Wenning, who ended his service on the board at his own request. Wenning had been a member of the Supervisory Board since April 2008 and its Chairman since May 2011. “Werner Wenning played a key role in shaping E.ON’s development in a period of significant challenges and dislocations in the energy industry,” Kley said. “In particular, his involvement in the design of E.ON’s new strategy helped pave the way for E.ON and Uniper to achieve lasting success in a dramatically altered energy world.”

Karl-Ludwig Kley, an attorney, began his career in 1982 at Bayer AG. He oversaw finance for Bayer in Japan, the pharmaceuticals division of Bayer’s subsidiary in Italy, and finance and investor relations at Bayer AG until 1998. Kley was CFO of Deutsche Lufthansa AG from 1998 to 2006, after which he became a member and Deputy Chairman of the Management Board of Merck KGaA. He became Chairman of the Management Board and CEO of Merck in 2007. Kley initiated a far-reaching reorganization of the Darmstadt-based chemicals and pharmaceuticals company, focusing it on three core businesses.

The Annual Shareholders Meeting also elected four other members to the E.ON Supervisory Board and resolved to increase the number of members from 12 to 18 until 2018.

  • Erich Clementi, Senior Vice President for Sales and Distribution at IBM, is an expert in industry 4.0 and the digitalization of customer processes.
  • Carolina Dybeck Happe is CFO of ASSA ABLOY AB, a publicly listed company in Sweden that manufactures lock and security systems for the global market. An expert in finance, she succeeds Ren? Obermann, who had been a member of the Supervisory Board since 2011.
  • Andreas Schmitz, an attorney and bank manager, is currently Chairman of the Supervisory Board of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG.
  • Ewald Woeste has comprehensive knowledge of the energy industry thanks to his many years at the helm of energy companies.

Three new employee representatives—Tibor Gila, Silvia ?m?tralov?, and Albert Zettl—will also belong to the enlarged E.ON Supervisory Board. With a total of five female members, it now has slightly more than the 30 percent mandated by German law.

“The new composition of the Supervisory board fits superbly with the new E.ON,” Kley emphasized. “The current and new members have abundant experience and expertise, which will help prepare the company for the new energy world. I’m very much looking forward to my new task and to working with my Supervisory Board colleagues, the E.ON Management Board, and the company’s employees.”

This press release may contain forward-looking statements based on current assumptions and forecasts made by E.ON Group Management and other information currently available to E.ON. Various known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors could lead to material differences between the actual future results, financial situation, development or performance of the company and the estimates given here. E.ON SE does not intend, and does not assume any liability whatsoever, to update these forward-looking statements or to conform them to future events or developments.