Barbara Kux

Barbara has held top management positions at global companies for 30 years and was the first woman to be appointed to the Managing Board of Siemens. She brings to Grosvenor vast experience in sustainable business practices and, through her background a valuable continental European perspective.

Under her leadership, Siemens was ranked as the most sustainable industrial company in the world in both 2012 and 2013 in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index.

Since 2013 she has been a board director in a number of leading global companies. They include board mandates in the international fragrance and flavor company Firmenich as Vice Chairman in her home country Switzerland as well as in Henkel and Pargesa Holding.

Barbara has an MBA from INSEAD and in 2010 was listed by the business school as one of 50 Alumni who changed the world. The Wall Street Journal and Fortune have recognized Barbara among the leading and most powerful international women in business.

Supervisory board mandates

• Firmenich S.A., Switzerland: member of the board of directors since 2013 and from 2008 to 2011, vice chairman, lead director, member of the finance, audit and risk committee

• Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Germany: member of the supervisory board since 2013, member of the nomination committee

• Grosvenor Group Ltd, United Kingdom: non-executive member of the board of directors since 2019, member of the audit committee

Former mandates

• Pargesa Holding, Switzerland (a major shareholder in Adidas, LafargeHolcim, SGS, Total, PernodRicard, Umicore etc.): member of the supervisory board, 2015 to 2020, member of the audit and remuneration committees. I relinquished my board positions at Umicore and Total when I was appointed to the board of this parent holding company.

• Umicore NV/SA, Belgium: member of the supervisory board, 2014 to 2015, member of the nomination committee

• Total SA, France: member of the supervisory board, 2011 to 2017, member of the governance, strategy and nomination committee

• Engie SA, France: member of the supervisory board, 2016 to 2019, member of the ethics committee.

Executive track record

• Siemens AG, Germany: member of the managing board (as the first woman in the company’s history), 2008 to 2013. Increased results in supply chain management and sustainability by several billion euros. Under my leadership, Siemens was named the world’s most sustainable industrial company in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index in 2012 and 2013.

• Royal Philips N.V., Netherlands: member of the group management committee, 2003 to 2008, responsible for supply chain management and sustainability as well as for significant earnings increases based on procurement and sales growth in “green lighting”

• Ford Motor Company, USA, executive director Central Europe, Ford of Europe, 1999 to 2003, strengthening the market position in Central and Eastern Europe and realising synergies with new acquisitions

• Previously head of Nestlé S.A., Switzerland, in Central and Eastern Europe, making the company a regional market leader for consumer goods, having already achieved this for ABB Ltd., Switzerland, in the region’s power plant construction business. After completing an MBA with distinction at INSEAD in Fontainebleau, I began my career as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company, Inc. in Germany, most recently as an engagement manager.

Social commitment

• At the University of St. Gallen, I have been teaching sustainability for the MBA, executive MBA and international executive MBA programmes since 2014, since 2019 as a main lecturer. The Master’s programme in Strategy and International Management, which I co-supervised from 2015 to 2019, was ranked first of up to 100 programmes ranked in the annual global Financial Times survey.

• Member of the board of trustees of the Max Schmidheiny Foundation and of the advisory board of the department of economics at the University of Zurich, since 2014

• Member of the nine-member highlevel expert group preparing the European Decarbonisation Pathways Initiative (EDPI) of the EU from 2016 to 2018. Our recommendations for reducing CO2 emissions were published in December 2018.

• Member of the SDSN Leadership Council defining the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set in 2016

• Director in residence for good corporate governance, INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France, since 2014

• Juror, e.g. for The Spark Female Founder Awards 2019 and 2020, the German Innovation Award 2020, the EY Public Value Award 2019 or the Georg von Holtzbrinck Prize for Business Journalism 2012 to 2017.

Awards

• 2012 German Environmental Award for large companies presented to me by the Federal Environment Minister Peter Altmaier for outstanding commitment to environmental protection and sustainable development at Siemens

• Repeatedly ranked as one of the leading women in international business by the business magazine Fortune and by the business daily Wall Street Journal

• Received the 2012 Women’s Business Award, Switzerland

• Honoured as one of 50 INSEAD Alumni who changed the world in 2010

• 1998 award as best foreign investor in Poland presented by President Alexander Kwasniewski in 1998 (for Nestlé)

• Since 1995 member of the Global Leaders of Tomorrow appointed by the World Economic Forum in Davos.