The Board of Directors of Swissmetal has appointed Dr Olaf Schmidt-Park as the new CEO of Swissmetal. The process of finding a successor has been in progress since autumn 2008 and has already been publicly announced.

Dr Olaf Schmidt-Park is a 48-year-old German. He studied mechanical engineering at the Technical University of Hanover before going on to do a PhD in chemical engineering at the Technical University of Berlin. He brings with him many years of international experience in business leadership and product and project management in the Bayer Group and was latterly President and CEO of H.C.Starck, Inc, Newton, USA.

Martin Hellweg will hand over management of Swissmetal to Dr Schmidt-Park on 15 May 2009, the day after the forthcoming Annual General Meeting. Martin Hellweg, the Ally Management Group’s restructuring specialist, became CEO of Swissmetal in June 2003 when the company was going through a very difficult phase. He was subsequently successful in refinancing Swissmetal and helping to relaunch the company. Under his leadership a comprehensive restructuring and industrial reorganization programme was devised and implemented.

The Board of Directors has also decided to change its proposal for appointments to the Board of Directors at the forthcoming AGM on 14 May 2009. The Board will now propose that current members Dr Roger Bühler, Dr Dominik Koechlin, Max Locher and Dr Friedrich Sauerländer all be re-elected for a further one-year period of office and that Ferdinand Stutz und Dr Jürg Henz be elected as new members. Ferdinand Stutz is a 52-year-old Swiss with a degree in foundry engineering. He has many years of international management experience and was latterly a member of the Executive Committee of Georg Fischer AG. Jürg Henz is a 46-year-old Swiss with a PhD in the natural sciences from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH). He has held management positions in the Saurer Group and is currently an executive at Oerlikon Solar Ltd.