The main tasks of the Board of Directors are to determine the Group’s strategy and general policy, and to monitor Bekaert’s operations. The Board of Directors is the company’s prime decision-making body except for matters reserved by law or by the articles of association to the General Meeting of Shareholders. The Board of Directors currently consists of thirteen members. Their professional profiles cover different areas of expertise, such as law, business, industrial operations, finance & investment banking, HR, consultancy, ESG, innovation and compliance.
GRI 102-18, GRI 102-23, GRI 103-2, GRI 103-3
(1) Independent Directors
The Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of 12 May 2021 approved the reappointment of Henriette Fenger Ellekrog and Eriikka Söderström as independent Directors, for a term of four years up to and including the Annual General Meeting to be held in 2025.
The term of office of the Directors Charles de Liedekerke, Hubert Jacobs van Merlen, Oswald Schmid, and independent Directors Mei Ye and Colin Smith will expire at the Annual General Meeting of Shareholders of 11 May 2022. Charles de Liedekerke and Hubert Jacobs van Merlen, having served on the Board during nine and six terms respectively, will then retire in line with the retirement age for Directors as applied by Bekaert. Colin Smith has decided to retire and does not seek reappointment. The Board of Directors will propose that the General Meeting appoints Maxime Parmentier as Director for a term of one year, re-appoints Oswald Schmid as Director for a term of one year, and re-appoints Mei Ye as independent Director for a term of one year.
The number of Directors will decrease from thirteen to eleven and gender diversity will further increase: from 38% to 45% female Directors on the Board.
The Board of Directors is grateful to Charles de Liedekerke, Hubert Jacobs van Merlen, and Colin Smith for their substantial contributions as Directors of the Company.
Independent Director
Swedish, °1958
May 2019
Stockholm School of Economics and New York University Leonard N Stern School of Business
Jürgen Tinggren was appointed independent Director and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Bekaert on 8 May 2019.
Jürgen Tinggren started his career in 1981 as Senior Associate with Booz Allen Hamilton and joined Sika AG in 1985 to take on various managerial and executive functions of increasingly broader scope and responsibility.
In 1997, he joined the Executive Committee of Schindler Holding AG. In 2007, he was appointed Chief Executive Officer and President of the Group Executive Committee of Schindler. He became a member of the Board of Directors in 2014.
Member of the Board of Johnson Controls, Inc.
Annual General Meeting of 2023
Chairman of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee
Member of the Audit, Risk & Finance Committee
May 2020
University of Applied Sciences of Vienna
Oswald Schmid joined Bekaert as COO on 1 December 2019. On 12 May 2020, he took the helm as interim CEO and on 2 March 2021 he was appointed CEO.
Oswald Schmid began his career with Semperit in 1984, before moving to Continental in 1990 as Head of Purchasing. In 2002, he joined Schindler as Head of Purchasing & Strategic Sourcing and held various CEO as well as area management positions.
From 2013 on he served as a member of the Group Executive Committee of Schindler. In 2017 he moved to the Kalle Group to become CEO and managing director.
Member of the Supervisory Board of Wienerberger
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Non-native = nationality other than the country where the registered office of the Company is located, i.e. Belgium
French, °1976
May 2015
Université Paris-Dauphine and Cass Business School
Gregory Dalle is a Managing Director at Credit Suisse in the Investment Banking & Capital Markets Division, based in London.
Gregory joined Credit Suisse in 2000 as a member of the EMEA Mergers & Acquisitions Group. He joined the Industrials Group in 2014 and was appointed Head of EMEA Industrials Group in 2017 and Global co-Head of Diversified Industrials in 2021. Gregory has investment banking coverage responsibility for a number of Credit Suisse's major industrial clients, advising them on a broad range of M&A, Equity and Debt transactions.
Annual General Meeting of 2023
Independent Director - Danish, °1966
May 2020
Copenhagen Business School, INSEAD, London Business School and Wharton Business School
Henriette Fenger Ellekrog started her career at Peptech A/S where she became Director of Administration and Personnel. Next, she took up several consultancy and management functions at Mercuri Urval A/S.
Ms Ellekrog continued her career at TDC in several executive HR roles before moving to SAS AB as Executive VP HR. More recently, she headed the HR office at Danske Bank A/S. Currently, she is Chief Human Resources Officer at Ørsted.
Member of several advisory boards and committees since 2003
Annual General Meeting of 2025
Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee
Belgian, °1953
May 1988
Catholic University of Louvain
University of Namur
Charles de Liedekerke started his career with Liedekerke, Wolters, Waelbroeck and Kirkpatrick and moved to the US in 1980 as Finance and Administration Officer of a subsidiary of Carmeuse. He joined Lafarge in 1982, holding various operational and functional responsibilities in Paris, Dallas, and Calgary. In 1992 he was appointed Chief Financial Officer of Bekaert. He returned to Lafarge in 1998 as member of the Group Executive Committee and president of the Aggregates and Concrete division, until his resignation in 2004. He chaired the Boards of various companies afterwards.
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Member of the Audit, Risk & Finance Committee
Belgian, °1978
May 2016
Free University of Brussels, Ecole Centrale Lille (Ingénieur Généraliste)
Christophe Jacobs van Merlen joined Bain Capital Europe, LLP (London) in 2004. He was previously a Consultant at Bain & Company in Brussels, Amsterdam, and Boston, where he provided strategic and operational advice to private equity, business services, industrial, and financial services clients.
Christophe Jacobs van Merlen is currently Managing Director at Bain Capital Europe and member of the Leadership team and member of different board, audit, operating and M&A committees. He plays a leading role in a variety of investments at Bain Capital.
Annual General Meeting of 2024
Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee
Belgian, °1953
May 2003
Catholic University of Louvain
Hubert Jacobs van Merlen (°1953) is an advisor to the Private Equity sector. From 1997 to 2014, he was President and CEO of IEE SA, Luxembourg, a leading company in the field of automotive safety sensors with manufacturing sites in Luxembourg and technical sales offices in the US, South Korea and Japan.
He started his career in 1978 as auditor of KPMG (Houston, TX) and became in 1981 Division Controller of the Drilling Fluids Division of Chromalloy American Corp. (St. Louis, MO). In 1987 he transferred to Commercial Intertech Corp. (Youngstown, OH) as European Finance Director and was appointed in 1995 Sr. Vice President & CFO.
Chairman of Stichting Administratiekantoor Bekaert, representing the interests of the reference shareholder of Bekaert.
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Chairman of the Audit, Risk & Finance Committee
Independent Director - British, °1955
May 2018
University of Southampton
During a career spanning more than 40 years with Rolls Royce, Colin Smith has progressed up the career ladder to become a world-class authority in aerospace Engineering and Technology. He started with Rolls Royce in 1974 as undergraduate apprentice and took on many consecutive Engineering and Technology functions of increasingly broader scope and responsibility. He was appointed Director of Research and Technology in 2004 and Director of Engineering and Technology in 2005, before he became Group President of Rolls Royce in 2016, a role which he took up until retirement.
Several non-executive and advisory roles
Annual General Meeting of 2022
Independent Director - Finnish, °1968
May 2020
University of Vaasa
Eriikka Söderström has a strong finance background having worked in many internationally operating corporations.
She started her career in Nokia where she spent 14 years in different finance roles in Nokia Networks. Her last positions there were as the interim CFO of Nokia Networks and Corporate Controller of Nokia Siemens Networks.
She has also worked as the CFO of Oy Nautor Ab, Vacon Plc and Kone Corporation, and was the CFO of F-Secure, a cyber security company, from 2017 until September 2021.
Member of the Board of Directors of Valmet since 2017 and Chairman of the Audit Committee since 2018
Member of the Board of Directors and Chairman of the Audit Committee of Kempower since 2021
Member of the Board of Directors of Amadeus IT Group since 2022
Annual General Meeting of 2025
Member of the Audit, Risk & Finance Committee
Belgian, °1977
May 2019
Solvay Management School, Free University of Brussels, and INSEAD France and Singapore
Caroline Storme started her career with Deloitte Consulting in 2000 in Belgium. She worked at Bekaert as financial controller from 2004-2006 before she moved to Amtech, IGW based in Suzhou, China where she was appointed CFO.
She joined UCB in 2012, first in controlling functions before heading Asian global business services, based in Shanghai, China, and since 2017 in various R&D financial functions at UCB Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
Caroline Storme currently holds the position of R&D Finance Lead Neurology at UCB in Belgium.
Annual General Meeting of 2023
Belgian, °1981
May 2016
Catholic University of Louvain, Free University of Brussels and London School of Economics
Emilie van de Walle de Ghelcke is Head of Legal at Sofina, a family-controlled investment company listed on Euronext Brussels (BEL20-index).
Before joining Sofina, Emilie was a member of the Brussels Bar since 2005. She joined the corporate and finance practice of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer in 2009 where she advised Belgian and international clients on domestic and cross-border public and private M&A transactions, corporate governance matters, corporate restructurings, joint ventures and financial law advisory.
Emilie van de Walle de Ghelcke joined Sofina in 2016. As Head of Legal and Compliance Officer, her practice mainly covers M&A transactions, advice on corporate governance and listed company matters, group compliance and legal matters as well as external communication. She is also part of the core team leading the implementation of Sofina's ESG strategy.
Annual General Meeting of 2024
Belgian, °1956
May 2016
Catholic University of Louvain and IMD
Henri Jean Velge started his career in 1981 at Shell (The Netherlands) as well-site petroleum Engineer. He moved to Brunei in 1982 as Operations Manager and resigned from Shell in 1985 to obtain an MBA degree.
In 1987 Henri Jean Velge joined Bekaert as Executive Director of Industrias Chilenas de Alambre (Chile). In 1991 he moved to the United States and became Corporate Vice President Wire Americas in June 1994. In 2001 he was appointed Executive Vice President and became member of the Bekaert Group Executive, responsible for the global wire activities. From 2013 till mid 2014 he was responsible for all the business platforms.
Annual General Meeting of 2024
Independent Director - US citizen, °1966
May 2014
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Fudan University in Shanghai
Mei Ye worked for 10 years with McKinsey & Company (2003-2013) as a senior expert and consultant in financial services, policy recommendations and corporate governance.
Prior to McKinsey, Mei Ye was corporate strategy manager and lead analyst at E*TRADE Financial, a US-based online financial services company (1999-2003). She also worked as a research analyst for Gartner Group (1997-1999), with Social Policy Research Associates (1995-1997), and at the Office of President of the University of North Carolina System in the US (1992-1994).
Independent Director of the Board of Shenwan Hongyuan Group and external advisor to McKinsey & Company.
Founding council member of Future China Society and SFY Foundation in China, and board member of New York Military Academy and Stanford Global Projects Center
Annual General Meeting of 2022
