Vattenfall moves to cross-border business structure
15 January 2015
Vattenfall will bring in a new organisational structure and executive management team. The changes - which will take effect on 1 April - are part of the state-owned Swedish utility's current review of its group-wide strategy.
Vattenfall spokesman Robert Pletzin said the major change is a shift from the company's current regional set up - Nordics and Continental/UK - to a business orientated structure in cross-border business areas. For example, the new Distribution business area will cover operations in both Germany and Sweden, which were previously managed separately.
"Vattenfall operates in a challenging market environment, where cost efficiency and sustainability are a must for every successful actor. To focus our efforts it is imperative to make choices going forward," Magnus Hall, Vattenfall president and CEO, said in a company statement. "The first step is to lay out our general strategic direction, and to me some things are obvious: we must defend our position as a European company, we should develop our offerings for customers to become sustainable, and we will be an electricity producer that concentrates on emission-free or emission-efficient solutions."
Vattenfall will be organised in six new business areas - Heat, Wind, Customers & Solutions, Distribution, Generation and Markets.
Vattenfall is Europe's largest supplier of heat. It provides district heating to customers in Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and Sweden and produces electricity with high efficiency, it said. Vattenfall is one of the biggest off shore wind developers in Europe, having 1000 wind turbines installed in Denmark, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden and the UK. The company has more than six million electricity customers in Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden. It connects electricity customers to the grid through large networks in Sweden and Berlin. It also has "vast resources" of emissions- free electricity production consisting of hydro and nuclear power. The company's energy trading business covers all energy-related commodities.
The company's focus "will be on actual business as well as on cross-border synergies," Hall said.
The new organisational set-up will comprise four corporate staff functions - CFO Function, Legal, Strategic Development and Human Resources. In addition, Vattenfall's Lignite Mining and Generation operations will be organised in a separate unit reflecting the company's ambition to divest its lignite - or brown coal - business.
A key task for the new executive management team will be to develop the details of the new strategy and adapt it to each business area.
The new team comprises: Magnus Hall, president and CEO; Ingrid Bonde, head of Staff Function Finance and deputy CEO; Anne Gynnerstedt, head of Staff Function Legal & CEO Office; Andreas Regnell, head of Staff Function Strategic Development; Kerstin Ahlfont, head of Staff Function Human Resources; Tuomo Hatakka, head of Business Area Heat, Mining & Generation; Annika Viklund, head of Business Area Distribution; Gunnar Groebler, head of Business Area Wind; Torbjörn Wahlborg, head of Business Area Generation; Martijn Hagens, head of Business Area Customers & Solutions; Stefan Dohler, head of Business Area Markets.
Vattenfall said it was disclosing the changes pursuant to the Swedish Securities Market Act.
Researched and written
by World Nuclear News