• John Rishton, the CFO of Dutch supermarkets group Ahold, has been confirmed as the company’s president and CEO. Rishton has been acting president and CEO since July 2007. Kimberly Ross, Ahold’s deputy CFO, has been appointed CFO. Both promotions are with immediate effect.
• Giancarlo Guenzi has been appointed CFO of Atlantia, the Italian motorway operator formerly known as Autostrade. Guenzi was formerly CEO of Pavimental, a road maintenance company that is part of Atlantia. He replaces Luca Bettonte, who has left the company in order to “pursue new career prospects.”
• Spanair, Spain’s second-largest airline, has appointed CFO Marcus Hedblom as its new CEO. The appointment comes after Spanair CEO Lars Nygaard asked to leave with immediate effect to take up a new position outside SAS Group—the Scandinavian owner of Spanair.
• Jürg Honegger, CFO of Panalpina, has resigned for personal reasons, according to a statement issued by the Swiss-based freight forwarding and logistics group. Honegger will leave the company during the course of 2008, and a successor will be announced in due course.
• T-Mobile UK has appointed Lars Nordmark, previously CFO of T-Mobile Austria, as its new financial director. Prior to joining T-Mobile in March 2003, Nordmark spent nine years with Orange where he was, among other things, finance director of the company’s Danish and Swedish operations. At T-Mobile UK, he replaces Johannes Schmidt-Schultes, who has joined Australian telecoms operator Telstra.
• Frantisek Lambert, financial director of Czech Television—the Czech Republic’s public service broadcaster—has decided to leave the company. Lambert, who joined as programming director four years ago, was given the “lower post” of financial director after it was revealed that he was a member of the Lidove milice paramilitary units under the Communist regime of the former Czechoslavkia, according to CTK Business News, the Czech news agency. In early 2007, Lambert admitted to the Czech Television Council that he was a member of Lidove milice but claimed membership was automatic when he joined the then Communist Party of Czechoslovakia in 1988.
• Christian Schrötter is to become CFO of Austria’s A-TEC Industries, a diversified industrial group, in January. Schrötter is currently CFO of ATB Austria Antriebstechnik—a subsidiary of A-TEC. “The rate at which we are growing, and the increasing number of subsidiaries involved, has meant that we have been looking for an experienced board-level financial officer for the whole A-TEC Group. Christian Schrötter is a manager from our own ranks with outstanding experienceÂÂPart of his job will be to strengthen strategic financial planning at the holding company level,” says Christian Schmidt, A-TEC Industries chief operating officer. Schrötter will continue as CFO of ATB Austria Antriebstechnik until a successor can be found.
• Martin Zwyssig, CFO of Schaffner—a Swiss electro technology group—is to step down next year “to take on a new challenge.” Zwyssig, who has served as Schaffner’s CFO for five years, will stay in post until a successor can be found.
• Imperial Energy, the UK energy group, has appointed John Hamilton as finance director, effective next month. Hamilton was previously an executive director with ABN Amro’s oil and gas team, where he specialised in upstream exploration and production. He replaces Guy Smith, who will remain with the company until March 2008 to ensure a smooth handover.
• Rudy Markham, the former CFO of Anglo-Dutch consumer goods group Unilever, has been appointed as a non-executive director of the Financial Reporting Council—the UK’s independent regulator of corporate reporting and governance.
• Chris Stibbs, group finance director of the UK’s Economist Group—publisher of CFO Europe—has been appointed non-executive director of Motivcom, a UK company specialising in delivering employee motivation and incentive programmes.