Executives & Directors Responsibility and leadership
Responsibility for the management of the Axpo Group lies with the Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who is supported by the Deputy CEO and the Executive Board. The CEO has overall responsibility to the Board of Directors. The Executive Board, chaired by the CEO, coordinates and monitors the Group's business activities.
Board of Directors
The Board of Directors of the Axpo Group is appointed by the Shareholders’ General Meeting. Members are proposed by the shareholders and elected for a 2-year term. They can be re-elected. Members do not perform executive functions within the Group.
Chairman of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Thomas Sieber (lic. oec. HSG) has been Chairman of the Board since March 2016 and was also Delegate of the Board from October 2019 until the end of April 2020. He was also a member of the Audit and Finance Committee from 2016 to January 2018, a member of the Strategy Committee until 2022 and a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee until March 2023.
Thomas Sieber was CEO of Salt Mobile SA from 2009 to 2012 and then its Chairman from 2012 to the end of 2015. Prior to that, he held senior management positions at Hewlett Packard Inc. and Fujitsu Siemens Computers AG.
Other mandates: Board of Directors of HCL Technologies.
Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Stephan Kuhn (lic. oec. HSG) has been a member of the Board of Directors since January 2018 and a member of the Audit and Finance Committee since January 2019. Since January 2024 he is Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee.
Prior to that, he was a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee until June 2019 and a member of the Strategy Committee from January 2022 to January 2024. Since 2015, he has worked as an independent senior advisor. From 2002 to 2015, Stephan Kuhn worked for Ernst&Young (EY), most recently as Head of Tax and Legal Consulting at EY in EMEIA (Europe, Middle East, India and Africa) and in parallel from 2011 to 2014 was responsible for advising and auditing financial institutions (banks, insurance companies and asset managers) in Switzerland.
Other mandates: Charitable foundations and associations in the fields of education and culture.
Member of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Martin Keller (dipl. civil engineer HTL/SIA) has been a member of the Board of Directors since April 2019 and a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee since June 2019.
He has been Managing Director of Sika Schweiz AG since July 2018. He previously worked in the construction and cement industries. From 2008 to 2019, he was a member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Aargau and the Commission for Environment, Construction, Transport, Energy and Spatial Planning Committee, acting as its Chairman from 2009 to 2013.
Other mandates: Board of Directors of Eduard Meier AG, Board of Directors of Eduard Meier Verwaltung AG, Board of Directors of Tägerhard Kies AG, Board of Directors of MOT Transport AG and President of the cementaargau.ch association.
Member of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Stefan Kessler (lic. iur. HSG, LL.M., lawyer) has been a member of the Board of Directors since January 2018 and Chairman of the Audit and Finance Committee since January 2019.
Since 2017, Stefan Kessler has worked as an independent management consultant specialising in interim management and M&A transaction management (Kreis2 AG) and as a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to this, he worked for around 12 years at the Graubünden-based energy company Repower in various management positions. Most recently, he played a key role in shaping the company as CFO and thus a member of Repower's Executive Board. Prior to that, he worked as legal counsel at a bank and as a lawyer at a large commercial law firm in Zurich.
Other mandates: Chairman of the Board of Directors of esolva ag, Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Upper Engadine Healthcare Foundation, Board of Directors of Raiffeisenbank Bündner Rheintal, Board of Directors of Laudinella AG, member of the municipal council and Chairman of the school commission of the municipality of Jenins.
Member of the Board of Directors, German national
Peter Kreuzberg, economist with diploma and master degrees from the universities of Mannheim and Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and a doctor’s degree from the Insititute for Energy Economics at the university of Cologne, is a member of the Board of Directors since March 2017. He is a member of the Audit and Finance Committee,the Remuneration and Nomination Committee as well as the Corporate Risk Council.
Since 2013, he is an independent Senior Advisor in the fields of energy and finance. From 2004 to 2012, he was a member of the Management Board of RWE Supply & Trading with commercial responsibility for asset optimisation and energy trading. Between 2002 and 2004, he was Head of Commodity Risk Management at RWE Group. Prior to that, he was a Director of Structured Products Trading at Enron Europe Ltd in London.
Member of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Samuel Leupold, Mechanical Engineer MSc ETH, MBA INSEAD, has been a member of the Board of Directors and the Strategy Committee since January 2024.
Since 2019, Samuel Leupold has served as independent Non-executive Director on various Board plus as a senior advisor with a focus on energy and infrastructure. Prior to that, he was CEO of Ørsted Wind Power (formerly Dong Energy Wind Power), the world's leading offshore wind farm developer and operator. In his earlier career, Samuel Leupold was Head of International Energy and Trading at utility BKW. He started his career at ABB and also worked at McKinsey as a consultant, not least for companies in the energy sector.
Other mandates: Chairman of the Board of Directors of CORIO Generation Ltd, Member of the Board of Directors of SLB Ltd.
Member of the Board of Directors, German national
Katja Pluto is a business mathematician (Friedrich Schiller University Jena) and also holds an M.Phil in Finance from the University of Cambridge. She has been a member of the Board of Directors since March 2023. She is also a member of the Audit and Finance Committee.
Until the end of 2022, she was Chief Risk Officer for Europe and the Middle East at Zurich Insurance Group. From 2007 to 2016, Ms Pluto held various senior positions in risk management at HSBC, most recently as Chief Risk Officer for the European corporate and trading business. Prior to that, she worked as a market and credit risk auditor in the banking supervision department of the German Bundesbank.
Other mandates: Member of the Audit Committee of the European Investment Bank, Board of Directors and Chairwoman of the Risk Committee, MS Reinsurance.
Member of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Jakob Stark, Dr phil. I, has been a member of the Board of Directors and the Strategy Committee since January 2021.
He has represented the canton of Thurgau in the Council of States for the SVP since December 2019. From June 2006 to May 2020, he was a member of the Thurgau cantonal government. Prior to this, he was mayor for 18 years, ten of which were full-time and eight part-time, in combination with working as a business and national editor for various Swiss newspapers.
Other mandates: President of Lignum Holzwirtschaft Schweiz, President of the Swiss Foundation for Surface Technology SSO.
Member of the Board of Directors, Swiss national
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, electrical engineer HTL, Executive MBA HSG, has been a member of the Board of Directors and the Strategy Committee since March 2017. He has chaired the Strategy Committee since January 2021 and has also been a member of the Remuneration and Nomination Committee since January 2020. He has been a member of the Executive Board of Swisscom Ltd since 2011, responsible for the SME business, Chief Digital Officer for Swisscom's digital business since 2016 and responsible for Swisscom mandates and projects since June.
Other mandates: Chairman of the Board of Directors of Swisscom Directories AG, Chairman of the Board of Directors Tethys-Robotics, Member of the Board of Directors of the Swiss Foundation.
Committees
Audit and Finance Committee
Stefan Kessler, Chair
Peter Kreuzberg, Representative BoD in Corporate Risk Council
Stephan Kuhn
Katja Pluto
Strategy Committee
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler, Chair
Samuel Leupold
Jakob Stark
Compensation and Nomination Committee
Stephan Kuhn, Chair
Martin Keller
Roger Wüthrich-Hasenböhler
