New member proposed for Swedish Match Board of Directors
Joakim Westh is currently working as a management consultant and is an owner in two companies, Absolent AB and EMA Technology AB. Between 2004 and 2009, Westh has had extensive experience in strategy and operational excellence at LM Ericsson AB. In his role as Senior Vice President, Head of Group Function Strategy and Operational Excellence, Westh had the overall responsibility for Ericsson’s strategy, long term business development, strategic business investments and alliances as well as driving Operational Excellence and procurement across the organization. He was also a member of Ericsson’s Executive Management Team. Prior to working at Ericsson, Westh held a similar position at Assa Abloy AB. He has also worked at McKinsey & Co Inc.
Westh is currently on the Board of Directors of Saab AB and Rörvik Timber AB, having previously been on the Boards of VKR Holding and Telelogic. Westh holds a Masters degree of Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, 1987), a Master of Science, M.S.c from the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH, 1985), and an undergraduate degree from Lidköping, Sweden.
In its proposal to the Annual General Meeting, the Nominating Committee has made particular note of Westh’s vast experience in promoting operational excellence in a variety of industries.
The current Swedish Match Board members Arne Jurbrant and Kersti Strandqvist have announced that they are not available for re-election at the upcoming Annual General Meeting.
Consequently, the Nominating Committee will propose re-election of the present Board members Conny Karlsson, Charles A. Blixt, Andrew Cripps, Karen Guerra and Meg Tivéus. New election is proposed of Joakim Westh. The Nominating Committee will propose Conny Karlsson as the Chairman of the Board and Andrew Cripps as the deputy Chairman of the Board.
The Nominating Committee in Swedish Match AB consists of Conny Karlsson (Chairman of the Board), Andy Brown (Cedar Rock Capital), Mads Eg Gensmann (Parvus Asset Management), William Lock (Morgan Stanley Investment Management), and Anders Oscarsson (AMF & AMF Funds). Mads Eg Gensmann is the Chairman of the Committee.
The character of this information is such that it shall be disclosed by Swedish Match AB (publ) in accordance with the Swedish Securities Markets Act. The information was disclosed to the media on 7 February, 2011 at 10.00 a.m. (CET).
