Klaus Kleinfeld

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Klaus Kleinfeld (2006)

Klaus Christian Kleinfeld (born November 6, 1957 in Bremen ) is a German manager . From January 2005 to June 2007 he was CEO of Siemens AG . While a corruption affair in the company was uncovered , the Supervisory Board refused to extend the contract prematurely, whereupon Kleinfeld resigned. From May 2008 to November 2016 he was Chief Executive Officer of the US aluminum company Alcoa , after which he was split up and headed Arconic until his dismissal in April 2017. In October 2017 he was introduced as the head of the Saudi Arabian project Neom and in August 2018 appointed as its head of the board of directors.

Life

Kleinfeld comes from a working class family. He studied business administration and business education at the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen and graduated in 1982 with a degree in business administration . He then went to the Institute of the Foundation for Empirical Social Research in Nuremberg as a research assistant . In 1992 he was at the University of Würzburg with the work , the corporate identity concept from the standpoint of strategic management for Dr. rer. pole. PhD.

Kleinfeld began his business career in 1986 at Ciba-Geigy in Basel . In 1987 he moved to Siemens AG, initially as a consultant in the central sales department. In 1996 he founded and ran the internal management consultancy Siemens Management Consulting (SMC). In this role, he played a key role in the creation and introduction of the top + corporate program. In 1998 he moved to the medical technology area near Erlangen , where he was in charge of the global business for X-ray and angiography systems. In April 2000 he was appointed a member of the divisional board.

In 2001, Kleinfeld was appointed Chief Operating Officer of the Siemens subsidiary in the USA . From 2002 to the end of 2003, as President and Chief Executive Officer , he was responsible for the Group's US business with 65,000 employees and a business volume of around 17 billion US dollars. One of the success factors was his skillful acting as a lobbyist in politics and business.

In January 2004, Kleinfeld was appointed to the Siemens Central Board, where he was responsible for the Information and Communications area and the regional companies in Africa , the Middle East , Russia and the other CIS countries for a few months . At the same time, Kleinfeld headed the central strategy department of Siemens AG. With his appointment as deputy chairman of the board in mid-2004, however, he gave up these tasks again.

On January 27, 2005, Kleinfeld replaced Heinrich von Pierer as Chairman of the Managing Board of Siemens AG, who moved to the Supervisory Board. Kleinfeld became the eleventh CEO in the company's history.

On April 25, 2007, Kleinfeld announced that he was not available for a contract extension. This was preceded by a postponement of the decision on the contract extension, which Siemens supervisory board chairman Gerhard Cromme justified with concerns about the US stock exchange supervisory authority SEC and the associated serious risks for the group in the course of the disclosure of a bribe affair in the company. Kleinfeld offered to leave the company earlier if a successor was found. This case occurred on May 20, 2007, when the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Siemens AG Cromme presented the Austrian Peter Löscher to the public as the new Chairman of the Management Board with effect from July 1, 2007 after a special meeting of the committee in Munich .

From 2007/08 to 2017 he worked in the management of the US aluminum groups Alcoa and Arconic , until he resigned from his position following a dispute with major shareholder Elliott Management Corporation , a hedge fund managed by Paul Singer . He then went to Saudi Arabia , where he worked as a personal economic advisor to the Saudi royal family.

Kleinfeld is married and has two daughters.

Business policy at Siemens

In October 2004, under the supervision of Kleinfeld, the fixed network and mobile communications divisions of Siemens AG were merged to form the new Communications (Com) division. Since it was not possible even in the sequel, a loss-making part of the business unit ( Siemens Mobile d. H. Mobile business without cordless landline phones) to its own power renovate , this was a year later at the Taiwanese company BenQ ceded Corporation.

Business strategy

In the widespread debate about partial sales, criticism of Kleinfeld's management was also expressed. Kleinfeld had "let the former high-tech company degenerate into a colorless producer of capital goods".

Leadership style

The American style of management not only brought Kleinfeld considerable criticism from employee representatives, trade unionists, shareholder associations and employees, it also led to increasing tensions within the company management. Chairman of the supervisory board Heinrich von Pierer is quoted as saying that Kleinfeld's “hurried management” overwhelmed the group, that “tough steps like the sale of the communications division” would have to be avoided in future and that Kleinfeld's “actionism” had to come to an end. Manager magazin reported on disputes within the top management of Siemens AG in a cover story from September 2006.

BenQ bankruptcy

Kleinfeld was exposed to persistent criticism and public pressure after the mobile communications division , which he managed to transfer to the Taiwanese BenQ , filed for bankruptcy on September 28, 2006. Kleinfeld's behavior was the subject of criticism from politicians, trade union representatives and employees. Although Kleinfeld and the BenQ management had assured that cell phone production in Germany should continue for at least another five years, a few days after the employment commitment expired, around 3,000 employees in the German plants were about to lose their jobs. The suspicion was voiced that the factories in Germany should be closed anyway, and that BenQ was only interested in Siemens' trademark rights and patents.

With a wage waiver by Kleinfeld in the amount of 1.3 million euros as well as other members of the Management Board in the amount of 3.7 million euros and a subsidy from Siemens AG, a fund for the BenQ employees was set up with funds amounting to 35 million euros.

Bribery affairs

Since the end of 2006, Siemens has been at the center of a bribery affair worth at least 1.5 billion euros. Shortly before Christmas 2006, Kleinfeld had to admit to the Financial Times that he had known about the bribe money accounts since the end of January, and that he had already assumed a connection when the Siemens offices were searched in mid-November. While Kleinfeld admitted his knowledge of the existence of such transactions, according to research by the Financial Times in the course of the public prosecutor's questioning, he later qualified this statement by claiming that "he had no idea the extent of the alleged bribery payments".

In February 2007, several news magazines reported on a second bribery scandal, which is why the Nuremberg public prosecutor's office began to search Siemens' business premises and to seize incriminating material.

On April 25, 2007, Kleinfeld announced that he was not available for a contract extension, but that this had nothing to do with the bribery affairs. In contrast, on April 26, according to a report by Spiegel Online , the new Siemens supervisory board boss Cromme justified the separation from CEO Kleinfeld for the first time by stating that the US stock exchange supervisory authorities had expressed “serious concerns” in the course of the bribery affair, which is why a contract was not extended. Previously, on April 26, it became known that the bribe affair at Siemens could probably be bigger than previously known, as the internal investigators had discovered new accounts that could have served as bribe funds; there could now be more than three billion euros in questionable payments.

Kleinfeld denies any joint responsibility for the years of bribery practice in the Siemens group. Siemens, on the other hand, is demanding a symbolic compensation payment of 2 million euros.

CEO at Alcoa and Arconic

Kleinfeld was appointed to the board of the American aluminum group Alcoa in 2007 as Chief Operating Officer (COO) . Since May 8, 2008, he has held the two positions of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Alcoa.

On November 1, 2016, Kleinfeld separated Alcoa into two separately listed companies:

  • The new "Alcoa Corporation", headed by Roy Harvey, outsourced the bauxite and aluminum production.
  • The "Arconic Incorporation", which Kleinfeld took over as CEO and Chairman himself, kept the manufacturing industry and a large part of the Alcoa shares.

As a result, the private equity investor “Elliott Management Corporation”, which manages a good 13.2% of the shares in Arconic, openly criticized Kleinfeld's activities.

In the published letters, Elliott criticized Kleinfeld's inadequate "leadership quality, ability, determination and personality" ("... Mr. Kleinfeld's leadership skills, ability, dedication and personality ...") and demanded his dismissal.

In detail, the investor assumed business decisions that primarily served Kleinfeld and the management board, but not the company, its investors and employees. Specifically, the Elliott named among other things the created organization within the board of directors ("staggered board"), Kleinfeld's combined CEO and chairman role, his numerous board activities in other companies, non-transparent rules on voting quorums within the board of directors and his bad corporate development reasonable salary. Elliott referred to Kleinfeld's management team as “Dr. Kleinfeld's House of Governance Horrors ”.

On April 17, 2017, Arconic Inc. dismissed Klaus Kleinfeld "by mutual consent" after Kleinfeld had sent a letter to the aforementioned Elliott Management Corporation, the content of which was not coordinated with his employer.

In this letter, authenticated by Arconic, Kleinfeld implies that he has information from the private life of Elliott Management Corporation Chairman Paul Singer . The letter, which Elliott published in full the following day, contains allusions to Singer's private activities in connection with a visit to Berlin on the occasion of the 2006 FIFA World Cup .

Elliott responded to this letter with a complaint to the Arconic Supervisory Board, in which it was described as an attempt at intimidation following a pattern of reputational damage that Kleinfeld had already used in his time at Siemens to eliminate unpleasant opponents ("concerns [...] are not unfounded given Dr. Kleinfeld's history at Siemens in Germany of trying to tarnish the reputations of those he viewed as opponents. ").

Project Neom / Saudi Arabia

Kleinfeld has been at the helm of the Neom project since autumn 2017, responsible for the construction of a "future city" in Saudi Arabia, where he acts as personal advisor to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman . In August 2018 he was appointed head of the board of directors of Neom . For around 500 billion dollars, Kleinfeld is to build a new city of superlatives on behalf of bin Salman in the desert on a site the size of Hesse.

various

Memberships

Kleinfeld was temporarily a member of the Steering Committee of the Bilderberg Conference .

Rolex wrist watch

In 2004, a photo of Kleinfeld was published, in which he was wearing a Rolex wristwatch on his left wrist . On the occasion of the appointment as CEO, Siemens distributed a digitally edited version of the photo without a watch. The retouching was the subject of some media.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Klaus Kleinfeld: Corporate Identity and Strategic Management . Akademischer Verlag, Munich 1994, ISBN 3-929115-16-6 (series of publications product development & industrial design, vol. 5; acc .: Dissertation, University of Würzburg, 1992).
  2. ↑ Caspar Busse: Easy to deal with, tough on the matter: Klaus Kleinfeld Handelsblatt , December 25, 2004, accessed on November 10, 2018
  3. ↑ Holger Steltzner : Political wrong-way driver. In: FAZ , October 23, 2018, accessed on October 24, 2018.
  4. ^ Arno Balzer: Critical size. In: Manager Magazin , August 25, 2006.
  5. ↑ a b Thumbscrews for Klaus Kleinfeld. In: BusinessNews , August 25, 2006.
  6. ^ Anne Seith: Siemens employees revolt on the intranet. In: Spiegel Online , September 26, 2006.
  7. ↑ Andreas Nölting: BenQ does the dirty job for Siemens. In: Spiegel Online , September 28, 2006.
  8. ^ "Fraudulently deceived by Siemens AG" . In: Tagesschau , September 29, 2006 (tagesschau.de archive).
  9. ↑ Politicians criticize Siemens after BenQ Mobile bankruptcy. In: heise online , September 30, 2006.
  10. ↑ Bavaria wants to save BenQ-Werke. In: Spiegel Online , October 2, 2006.
  11. ↑ Björn Brodersen: Siemens creates 30 million euro fund for BenQ employees. In: teltarif.de , October 2, 2006.
  12. ↑ Financial Times Deutschland: Kleinfeld knew about the suspicious account http://ftd.de/unternehmen/industrie/144664.html ( Memento from January 3, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ Siemens has a new bribery scandal. In: Spiegel Online , February 14, 2007.
  14. ↑ Cromme justifies decision against Kleinfeld. In: Spiegel Online , April 26, 2007.
  15. ↑ Siemens threatens Pierer with billions. In: Spiegel Online , September 23, 2009.
  16. ↑ Elliott Management Responds to Klaus Kleinfeld's resignation. Business Wire , April 17, 2017, accessed April 20, 2017 .
  17. ↑ Elliott Management Comments on “Dr. Kleinfeld's House of Governance Horrors ”. Business Wire , April 13, 2017, accessed April 20, 2017 .
  18. ^ Roland Lindner: Former Siemens boss: Klaus Kleinfeld loses power struggle at Arconic . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . April 17, 2017, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed April 17, 2017]).
  19. ↑ Elliott Management Responds to Klaus Kleinfeld's resignation. Retrieved April 17, 2017 .
  20. ↑ Klaus Kleinfeld: Juicy letter costs German top managers the job . Süddeutsche.de, April 20, 2017.
  21. ↑ Dr. Klaus Kleinfeld: Dr. Kleinfeld's Letter to Paul Singer. Elliott Management Corporation, accessed April 20, 2017 .
  22. ^ Richard B. Zabel: Elliott responds to Kleinfeld insinuations. (pdf, 264 kB) Elliott Management Corporation, April 17, 2017, accessed April 20, 2017 .
  23. ↑ Caspar Busse, Paul-Anton Krüger: Ex-Siemens boss should plan futuristic megacities for Saudi Arabia . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , October 24, 2017, accessed on October 24, 2018.
  24. ^ Gerhard Hegmann: The Saudi Arabia affair leaves German corporations cold. In: Die Welt , October 13, 2018, accessed October 24, 2018.
  25. ↑ Florian Diekmann, Dinah Deckstein: Siemens boss Kaeser and the Khashoggi case: Rejection with side effects. In: Spiegel Online , October 22, 2018, accessed on October 24, 2018.
  26. ^ List of former members of the Steering Committee
  27. ↑ Matthias Eberenz: Siemens CEO: The Rolex bothered. In: www.abendblatt.de. Retrieved January 6, 2017 .
  28. ↑ spiegel.de January 28, 2005: The Siemens boss and the missing Rolex
  29. ↑ Joachim Herr: Kleinfeld's Chaostage. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 5, 2006.
  30. ↑ manager-magazin.de / Klaus Werle July 26, 2006: Nasty games
  31. ↑ manager-magazin.de February 20, 2007: Signs of Power
personal data
SURNAME Kleinfeld, Klaus
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kleinfeld, Klaus Christian (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German manager
DATE OF BIRTH November 6, 1957
PLACE OF BIRTH Bremen