New Siemens Gamesa CEO gets announced amid restructuring

Siemens Energy AG (ETR:ENR) on Wednesday announced a change of the chief executive of its wind business, Siemens Gamesa, as the group reported strong performance in its second fiscal quarter through March.

Group president and chief executive Christian Bruch said that the company benefited from continued strong demand for its technology to power the energy transition and that the turnaround of its wind business remains its focus. “To this end, we are taking steps to reduce complexity and create a more focused business,” Bruch added.

In what is described as a generational change at the top of Siemens Gamesa, Jochen Eickholt (62) will step down as CEO by mutual agreement on July 31 and leave the company on September 30, handing over to Vinod Philip (50), currently Head of Global Functions.

“In a very difficult situation at Siemens Gamesa, Jochen laid the central foundations for the urgently needed reorganisation and new start within Siemens Energy. It is only fair to emphasise that the causes of the quality problems did not fall under his tenure as CEO. With the concrete implementation of the multi-year restructuring plan agreed today, the time has now also come for a generational change at Siemens Gamesa,” said Bruch. Under Vinod Philip’s leadership, the wind power division will be integrated into the group's management structure.

Siemens Energy previously set a goal to bring the wind business to break even in fiscal 2026 and make it profitable thereafter.

In the onshore segment, the company plans to focus on markets that offer a stable regulatory framework, specifically Europe and the US. It said today that the production capacities in the onshore area will be adapted to this new orientation.

In the offshore area, the main focus is the ramping up of capacities, which is running as planned at the sites in Cuxhaven (Germany), Aalborg (Denmark), and Le Havre (France), says the announcement.

The planned restructuring will lead to job adjustments, but Siemens Gamesa expects its employee count to remain largely constant over the next few years in view of the growth in areas such as offshore.

While it cannot specify the exact scale of the job cuts, the company has committed to absorbing the impact through internal job transfers as much as possible.

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