Supervisory Board
From left to right, 1st row: Mark Garrett, Laurent Raets, Liat Ben-Zur, Mario Armero. Second row: Ines Kolmsee, Thomas Leysen, Marc Grynberg (invited by the Board), Géraldine Nolens.
3rd row: Marc Van Sande, Françoise Chombar, Eric Meurice, Koenraad Debackere
Belgian, 60
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
10 May 2000 (date appointment Chair: 19 November 2008)
EDUCATION
Law – KU Leuven, Belgium
EXPERIENCE
Thomas Leysen became Chairman of Umicore in November 2008 after serving as Chief Executive Officer of Umicore since 2000. During this mandate, he transformed the former Union Minière from a non-ferrous company into an international materials technology group called Umicore. He joined the group in 1993 as member of the Executive Committee, and successively managed several industrial divisions.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
Chair, Mediahuis, a European newspaper publishing group - Chair, King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium - Member of the Supervisory Board of Royal DSM
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021
Chairman since
19 November 2008
Chairman of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
19 November 2008
Spanish, 62
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
30 April 2020
EDUCATION
Law – University Complutense of Madrid, Spain
EXPERIENCE
Mr Armero started his professional career at the Armero Law firm and later joined AT&T Spain. From 1992 to 1999 he served as Secretary General at General Electric Plastics Spain, a position which he held until 2001, when he was appointed Chairman and CEO of General Electric Spain and Portugal, being the ultimate responsible for all the Group’s Divisions in Iberia. In March 2008, he joined Corporación Llorente, a diversified family owned industrial group, as CEO. Following that he joined Ezentis as Executive Chairman. From 2012 until 2020, Mr Armero has been the Executive Vice President of ANFAC, the Spanish Car manufacturers association.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
Advisor of Global Infrastructure Partners - Chairman of ENSO - Independent Board member of Bankinter Consumer Finance - Member of the CEDE Foundation (Spanish Confederation of Executives)- Board member of non lucrative association Junior Achievement
Member of the nomination & remuneration committee since
9 December 2020
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023
American, 44
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
25 April 2017
EDUCATION
Electrical engineering – UC Davis, USA Business Administration – UCLA Anderson, USA
EXPERIENCE
Liat Ben-Zur has been Corporate Vice President for Modern Life and Devices Product Marketing Management at Microsoft since September 2018.
Prior to joining Microsoft, she was SVP and Digital Technology Leader at Royal Philips where she was responsible for driving the connectivity and digital strategy, since 2014. She served previously in several leadership positions at Qualcomm, a US wireless telecommunications company, and was cofounder and Chairwoman of the AllSeen Alliance, a consortium for an open source, common language for the Internet of Things.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
No external appointments
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023
Belgian, 58
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
26 April 2016
EDUCATION
Master Applied Language Studies Dutch, English, Spanish – Ghent University, Belgium
EXPERIENCE
Françoise Chombar is co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Melexis, a producer of smart sensor and driver semiconductors for automotive, industrial and durable consumer and health applications. She served previously as planning manager at Elmos GmbH and operations manager and director at several companies within the Elex group. Françoise was a mentor in the Belgian women’s network Sofia for 17 years and is committed to STEM and gender balance advocacy, for which she received a Flemish Community Honour in 2019. In 2012, she was granted an Honorary Ambassadorship for Applied Language by the University of Ghent. In 2018, she received the title of Science Fellow by the VUB, University of Brussels.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
CEO and Director, Melexis NV, Belgium - Chairwoman, Flemish STEM Platform, an independent advisory group to the government of Flanders - Independent Director, Soitec S.A., France
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
26 April 2018
Belgian, 59
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
26 April 2018
EDUCATION
Engineering – Ghent University, Belgium Management – Ghent University, Belgium Management – MIT Sloan School of Management, USA
EXPERIENCE
Prof. Dr. Ir. Koenraad Debackere has been with KU Leuven since 1995, where he teaches Technology & Innovation Management and Policy. He has won numerous awards for his research, and in 2010 was awarded a Francqui Lecture Chair in economics and business. From 2005 until September 2020 he was the general manager of KU Leuven and member of the Board of KU Leuven.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
Chairman of the Board, KBC Group NV, Belgium - Member Board of Governors, RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021
Member of the nomination & remuneration committee since
9 December 2020
Member of the Audit Committee since
26 April 2018
Australian/Swiss, 58
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
28 April 2015
EDUCATION
Economics – University of Melbourne, Australia Applied Information Systems – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
EXPERIENCE
Mark Garrett has been Chief Executive Officer at Marquard & Bahls AG, a Hamburg-based leading independent energy supply, trading and logistics company, since August 2018.
Before joining Marquard & Bahls AG, he served as Chief Executive Officer at Borealis AG, Austria, a position he had held since 2007. Prior to that, he built an extensive career in the chemical industry working with companies such as Ciba-Geigy and DuPont.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board, Marquard & Bahls AG, Germany - Non-Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., USA- Non-executive Chairman, Board of Directors, OMV AG
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021
Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
29 July 2017
German, 50
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
26 April 2011
EDUCATION
Process and Energy Engineering – Technische Universität Berlin, Germany Industrial Engineering – École nationale supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France Business Administration – INSEAD Business School, France
EXPERIENCE
Ines Kolmsee was Chief Executive Officer of Services & Solutions at Aperam from October 2017 through September 2020. She previously served as CEO of SKW Stahl-Metallurgie Group, a specialty chemicals company with operations worldwide, COO and CTO at German utility EWE AG and CFO at Arques Industries AG.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
No external appointments
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023
Member of the Audit Committee since
26 April 2011
Chairman of the Audit Committee since
28 April 2015
French, 64
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
28 April 2015
EDUCATION
Economics – Sorbonne, France Mechanical Engineering – École Centrale Paris, France Business Administration – Stanford Graduate School of Business, USA
EXPERIENCE
Eric Meurice was formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of Netherlands-based ASML Holding, a major provider of advanced technology systems for the semiconductor industry. He was previously EVP in charge of Thomson Multimedia TV Division and held senior positions in several technology groups such as Intel, ITT, and Dell Computer.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
Non-Executive Director, Global Blue Group S.A., Switzerland- Non-Executive Director, IPG Photonics Corp, USA - Non-Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, Soitec S.A., France
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021
Belgian, 41
DATE APPOINTED TO BOARD
25 April 2019
EDUCATION
Commercial Engineering – Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management, Belgium
EXPERIENCE
Laurent Raets joined Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL) in 2006 and became Deputy Head of Investments in 2016. He began his career in 2002 as an M&A consultant at Deloitte Corporate Finance, where he was involved in buy and sell mandates, due diligence and valuation assignments.
EXTERNAL APPOINTMENTS
Censor of the Board of Directors of Imerys S.A., France
Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Member of the Audit Committee since
25 April 2019
Formerly EVP Energy & Surface Technologies
Belgian, 69
EDUCATION
Physics – University of Antwerp, Belgium Business Administration – Antwerp Management School, Belgium
EXPERIENCE
Marc Van Sande was appointed Executive Vice-President Energy & Surface Technologies in June 2010, after serving as CTO from 2005 to 2010 and as EVP Advanced Materials from 1999 to 2005. Marc joined Umicore in 1980, and held several positions in research, marketing and production. He was also responsible for the Energy & Surface Technologies business group and China.
Belgian
ABOUT THE SUPERVISORY BOARD
The Supervisory board’s cumulative industry experience is broad, covering automotive, electronics, chemicals, metals, energy and finance sectors in addition to the fields of academia and science.It also includes people experienced in the public and private sector and members with experience in the different regions in which Umicore is active.
Collectively, the Supervisory board possesses strong experience of managing industrial operations and counts 8 active or former CEOs in its ranks.
The board also has collective experience in disciplines that are specifically relevant to Umicore’s non-financial Horizon 2020 goals such as health and safety, talent attraction and retention and supply chain sustainability.
Belgium
Germany
Worldwide