MUNICH, Germany — Important decisions in the wind power division: Jochen Eickholt (62) has informed the Board of Directors of Siemens Gamesa that he will step down from his position as CEO by mutual agreement on July 31, 2024 and leave the company on September 30, 2024. He will be succeeded by Vinod Philip (50) on August 1, 2024, under whose leadership the wind power division will be integrated into the Group’s management structure and for whom operational responsibility will be assumed. Jochen Eickholt will continue to oversee the orderly and smooth handover during the transition period. Vinod Philip’s successor as Head of Global Functions (including IT, Purchasing, Innovation, Logistics, Project Management) will be announced at a later date.
“I would like to thank Jochen Eickholt personally and on behalf of Siemens Energy for his commitment in turbulent times. In his former role as a member of the Managing Board of Siemens Energy, Jochen made a major contribution to the very successful development of the Gas Services and Transformation of Industry Divisions. In a very difficult situation at Siemens Gamesa, Jochen laid the central foundations for the urgently needed reorganization and new start within Siemens Energy. It is only fair to emphasize that the causes of the quality problems did not fall under his tenure as CEO. With the concrete implementation of the multi-year restructuring plan agreed today, the time has now also come for a generational change at Siemens Gamesa. Vinod Philip is an excellent and highly esteemed manager. He has the best of both worlds: As Head of Service of Large Power Generation he has gained operational experience and as Chief Technology Officer and responsible Member of the Executive Board of the Global Functions Division he has successfully managed central functions critical to success,” says Siemens Energy CEO Christian Bruch.
Siemens Gamesa has initiated comprehensive restructuring measures and steps for long-term strategic development with the aim of achieving a double-digit operating margin. The aim of the measures is to achieve break-even by 2026 and then returning to profitable growth. The company will remain active in both the onshore and offshore business.
In future, the onshore business will focus primarily on markets that offer a stable regulatory framework and in which Siemens Gamesa can optimally and profitably meet the needs of its customers with its product ranges. Specifically, these are the European domestic market and the USA. Other local markets are only served in new business if this makes economic sense in the respective case. The production capacities in the onshore area will be adapted to this new orientation. The most important task in the offshore area is the ramp-up of capacities, which is currently running as planned at the sites in Cuxhaven (Germany), Aalborg (Denmark) and Le Havre (France).
The global service business remains an important pillar. In order to further expand the strong presence in the service of onshore turbines, the responsibilities for the new turbine and service business will be combined in future. This holistic approach has also been successfully implemented in other business areas at Siemens Energy in recent years. A new organizational model will also reduce hierarchical levels and regulate responsibilities more clearly. These measures were also successfully implemented in the other Siemens Energy businesses in 2022.
The organizational realignment will also result in job adjustments. On balance, however, the number of employees at Siemens Gamesa is expected to remain roughly constant over the next few years, as areas such as offshore are growing. The aim is to absorb as much of the planned staff reduction in the affected areas as possible through internal job transfers. The exact impact of the job cuts, especially on individual countries and locations, cannot yet be quantified. In the course of the change of CEO, Jochen Eickholt and Vinod Philip will finalize the individual measures in the coming weeks and discuss and negotiate them with the respective employee representatives over the next few months.
With the generational change at the top of Siemens Gamesa, the intended embedding as a fourth division and the adoption of the multi-year restructuring plan, the integration is entering the next phase. As of June 1, important central functions of Siemens Gamesa, such as Human Resources, Legal, IT, Purchasing and Logistics, will be placed under uniform global management at Group level. At the beginning of the calendar year, the Accounting, Controlling and Tax departments, among others, were merged in an initial integration phase. The aim is to become faster, more efficient and more transparent overall.