Düsseldorf (energate) - Uniper has found a successor to outgoing CEO Klaus-Dieter Maubach. Michael Lewis is to swap his chair at Eon's British subsidiary for that at Uniper in Düsseldorf. It is not yet known when the change will take place. "The formal appointment is to take place promptly, as soon as the entry date is fixed," Uniper announced. Nevertheless, Maubach has already left the board. Until Lewis takes up his duties, the new
chief financial officer, Jutta Döngens, and the equally new
chief operating officer, Holger Kreetz, will be jointly responsible for the group's management, the company explained.
Maubach's relatively short tenure as CEO of Uniper from 2021 to early 2023 coincided with a very turbulent period for the group, culminating in the
nationalisation in the wake of the energy crisis. The supervisory board expressly thanked Maubach for his extraordinary performance as crisis manager. He left the group at his own request and used a
special termination right in his contract to do so. Kreetz's predecessor as COO, David Bryson, also took the same step.
Lewis comes as "shaper of the energy transition"
Maubach's successor Michael David Lewis is 56 years old and British. He has led Eon's UK division since 2017 and was thus responsible for the
restructuring of the business unit and the integration of the long crisis-ridden former Innogy subsidiary NPower. Before assuming overall responsibility at Eon UK, he headed the group's renewables business for several years, which was transferred to RWE in the course of the Innogy takeover initiated in autumn 2019. Lewis had started his career at Eon in 2007.
"Uniper faces huge challenges, but above all huge opportunities when it comes to shaping the energy transition," Lewis now described his upcoming task. Part of the new
strategy at Uniper is to position itself as a renewable project developer and in the hydrogen sector. Tom Blades, also the British head of Uniper's supervisory board, praised the designated new boss as a manager with the right expertise and the necessary vision "to anchor Uniper successfully in the new energy world in the long term". /pa
