Thyssenkrupp chief Merz leaves, López Borrego comes in

Martina Merz, chief executive of thyssenkrupp AG, has asked the group’s supervisory board for “talks to find a timely mutual agreement for stepping down” from her position, Kallanish learns from an ad-hoc press release.

At the same time, the personnel committee proposed to the supervisory board to appoint Miguel Ángel López Borrego to the executive board, and effectively as chief executive. López Borrego is currently ceo of Norma Group SE, a maker of clamps, connectors and fluid systems. Before that, he was ceo of Siemens Spain and chairman of the board of Siemens Gamesa Renewables.

On Merz’s departure, supervisory board chairman Siegfried Russwurm stated that she had taken over a very difficult task at a challenging time and since then has initiated a fundamental change process. “Her target definition, according to which the best possible development of the businesses is … more important than the ownership structure, was also clearly supported by shareholders,” he noted.

One of the difficult challengers for management was to find a stand-alone solution for steelmaking division thyssenkrupp Steel Europe, an endeavour that had been defined repeatedly before Merz’s arrival.

Rotation appears to be the nature of the beast in the chair positions at both parent thyssenkrupp AG and division thyssenkrupp Steel Europe. Merz assumed the position in September 2019 after the ousting of Guido Kerkhoff, who is now head of Klöckner & Co.

Christian Koehl Germany