The corporate assembly in Norsk Hydro today elected Egil Myklebust as chairman of the board.
Myklebust, who retires as president and CEO of the company on 2 May, will assume the chair from Einar Kloster. The outgoing chairman has been a board member for nearly 10 years, the last four as chair. Last autumn he requested to be relieved of his post during 2001. Benedicte Berg Schilbred, a member of the board since 1990, also expressed the wish to step down.
"We were first and foremost concerned with finding a chair candidate with significant industrial expertise from a large-scale international corporation with the same type of challenges that Hydro contends with," said Sven Ullring, chairman of the corporate assembly. "The selection committee worked long and hard, evaluated numerous possible candidates in and outside Norway, and determined Myklebust to be the best choice."
The assembly also elected Ingvild Myhre and Elisabeth Grieg as new board members. The new board of directors is now one-half comprised of women representatives.
Ingvild Myhre is a chartered engineer and the managing director of Telenor Mobil. She has formerly held several management positions in Alcatel/STK. She has several honorary posts and has been a deputy member of Hydro's corporate assembly since 1998 and a board member since 1999.
Elisabeth Grieg is the managing director and chairman of the board in Grieg International AS and has formerly been employed in Star Shipping and Bergen Bank. Grieg holds several board appointments, including the Norwegian Shipowners' Association, and was educated at the Oslo Business School and the University of San Fransisco.
The corporate assembly also re-elected the employees' representatives to the board, while the election for the remaining shareholder elected board members will not take place until next year. Tom Wachtmeister will retire during the course of the year when he reaches the company's age limit of 70 years for board members.
Hydro's long tradition of the president and CEO also being a member of the board will be discontinued as of this board election. This is due to the board's delineation and adjustment of the distribution of tasks between the board and the administration, drawn up during the course of the year. From the point of view of the board, this is, in brief terms, is connected to securing the best possible conditions for working with the company's overall strategy and business planning, in addition to maintaining its supervisory function.
The committee working on the proposal for the composition of the board was led by Ullring, and included Kloster and the chairman of the shareholders' association, Westye Høegh. The committee has consulted with Hydro's largest shareholder, the Ministry of Trade and Industry, during the course of its work.
Norsk Hydro's board will consequently be made up of:
Egil Myklebust, chairman
Borger A. Lenth, vice chairman
Elisabeth Grieg
Ingvild Myhre
Gudmund Per Olsen (representing the employees)
Anne Cathrine Høeg Rasmussen
Odd Semstrøm (representing the employees)
Tom Wachtmeister
Per Wold (representing the employees)