The Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse AG resolved changes to the composition of the Executive Board in a meeting held today. CEO Dr Reto Francioni (57) was reappointed, and will serve a further term of office until 31 October 2016. He has been CEO of Deutsche Börse AG since 2005.
At the same meeting, Ms Hauke Stars (45) was appointed member of the Executive Board. IT engineer Stars will assume responsibility for the IT and Market Data & Analytics departments, along with selected external IT services which are to be combined into a restructured area of responsibility as previously announced, with effect from 1 December 2012. Stars is to succeed Dr Ing Michael Kuhn (58), whose contract will expire at the end of the year, and who is leaving the company on good terms as announced in February.
Hauke Stars is currently general manager of Hewlett-Packard (Schweiz) GmbH. She previously held management positions at Hewlett-Packard Nederland B.V., Triaton GmbH and Bertelsmann mediaSystems GmbH. She was born in Saxony-Anhalt, and studied at the Technical University in Magdeburg.
Frank Gerstenschläger (52), the Executive Board member responsible for Deutsche Börse’s cash market operations, has opted not to extend his contract when it expires on 31 March 2013, and will be leaving the company on good terms. After more than 20 years in various management positions with Deutsche Börse Group, he now wishes to take time to pursue other interests. Following Mr Gerstenschläger's departure, Deutsche Börse plans to jointly manage the cash market and the derivatives businesses, comprising the Xetra and Eurex segments, within the responsibility of Deputy CEO Andreas Preuss (56), thereby reducing the number of Executive Board members from six to five. Mr Preuss has already been responsible for Deutsche Börse Group’s entire derivatives business since 2006.
Deutsche Börse Group's Settlement and Custody area remains unchanged under the leadership of Jeffrey Tessler, CEO of Clearstream; likewise Finance, under CFO Gregor Pottmeyer.
Dr Joachim Faber, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Deutsche Börse since May 2012 and member since 2009, said, “We are delighted that Dr Francioni will be staying with the company for another term of office. He and his team have provided strong leadership in the past few years, which were not always easy, in what was at times a rocky environment. He will be concentrating in particular on implementing the re-defined strategy during his new period of office.”
Dr Faber went on to stress, “Today's decision to bring the cash market and derivatives businesses under uniform management represents a further step in improving efficiency at Deutsche Börse Group. This is in the interests of both clients and shareholders.”
He continued, “We have also gained a well-recognised IT specialist and experienced top-level manager in Ms Stars. She will be able to make key contributions to the success of the entire Group, with the development of an integrated technology and market data department.”
“We would also like to express our gratitude to Dr Kuhn who will be leaving the company at the end of the year. Deutsche Börse AG owes him a considerable debt of gratitude for presiding over our transition to an electronic exchange organisation until the present day.”
“The Supervisory Board also thanks Frank Gerstenschläger, who has decided after two decades of service at Deutsche Börse to devote more time to other interests. We respect his decision and wish him the very best.”
