Supervisory Board

Chairman

Date appointed to Board 
10 May 2000 (date appointment Chair: 19 November 2008)

Education 
Law – KU Leuven, Belgium

Experience 
Thomas Leysen became Chairman of Umicore in November 2008 after serving as Chief Executive Officer of Umicore since 2000. During this mandate, he transformed the former Union Minière from a non-ferrous company into an international materials technology group called Umicore. He joined the group in 1993 as member of the Executive Committee, and successively managed several industrial divisions.

External Appointments 
Chair, Mediahuis, a European newspaper publishing group
Chair, King Baudouin Foundation, Belgium
Member of the Supervisory Board of Royal DSM

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021

Chairman since
19 November 2008

Chairman of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
19 November 2008

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
25 April 2017

Education 
Electrical engineering – UC Davis, USA
Business Administration – UCLA Anderson, USA

Experience 
Liat Ben-Zur has been Corporate Vice President for Modern Life and Devices Product Marketing Management at Microsoft since September 2018. Prior to joining Microsoft, she was SVP and Digital Technology Leader at Royal Philips where she was responsible for driving the connectivity and digital strategy, since 2014. She served previously in several leadership positions at Qualcomm, a US wireless telecommunications company, and was cofounder and Chairwoman of the AllSeen Alliance, a consortium for an open source, common language for the Internet of Things.

External appointments
-

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
26 April 2016

Education 
Master Applied Language Studies Dutch, English, Spanish, Ghent University, Belgium

Experience 
Françoise Chombar is co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Melexis, a producer of smart sensor and driver semiconductors for automotive, industrial, durable consumer and health applications. She served previously as planning manager at Elmos GmbH and operations manager and director at several companies within the Elex group. Françoise was a mentor in the Belgian women's network Sofia for 17 years and is committed to STEM and gender balance advocacy, for which she received a Flemish Community Honour in 2019. In 2012, she was granted an Honorary Ambassadorship for Applied Language by the University of Ghent. In 2018, she received the title of Science Fellow by the VUB, University of Brussels.

External appointments 
CEO and Director, Melexis NV, Belgium
Chairwoman, Flemish STEM Platform, an independent advisory group to the government of Flanders
Independent Director, Soitec S.A., France

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2022

Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
26 April 2018

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
26 April 2018

Education 
Engineering – Ghent University, Belgium
Management – Ghent University, Belgium
Management – MIT Sloan School of Management, USA

Experience 
Prof. Dr. Ir. Koenraad Debackere has been with KU Leuven since 1995, where he teaches Technology & Innovation Management and Policy. He has won numerous awards for his research, and in 2010 was awarded a Francqui Lecture Chair in economics and business. From 2005 till September 2020 he was the general manager of KU Leuven and member of the Board of KU Leuven.

External appointments 
Non-Executive Director, KBC Group NV, Belgium
Member Board of Governors, RWTH Aachen University, Germany

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021

Member of the Audit Committee since
26 April 2018

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
28 April 2015

Education 
Economics – University of Melbourne, Australia 
Applied Information Systems – Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia

Experience 
Mark Garrett has been Chief Executive Officer at Marquard & Bahls AG, a Hamburg-based leading independent energy supply, trading and logistics company, since August 2018. Before joining Marquard & Bahls AG, he served as Chief Executive Officer at Borealis AG, Austria, a position he had held since 2007. Prior to that, he built an extensive career in the chemical industry working with companies such as Ciba-Geigy and DuPont.

External appointments
CEO, Chairman of the Executive Board, Marquard & Bahls AG, Germany
Non-Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, Axalta Coating Systems Ltd., USA
Non-Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, OMV AG

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021

Member of the Nomination & Remuneration Committee since
29 July 2017

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
26 April 2011

Education 
Process and Energy Engineering – Technische Universität Berlin, Germany
Industrial Engineering – École nationale supérieure des Mines de Saint-Étienne, France
Business Administration – INSEAD Business School, France

Experience 
Ines Kolmsee was Chief Executive Officer of Services & Solutions at Aperam SA from October 2017 through September 2020. She previously served as CEO of SKW Stahl- Metallurgie Group, a specialty chemicals company with operations worldwide, COO and CTO at German utility EWE AG and CFO at Arques Industries AG.

External appointments
-

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023

Member of the Audit Committee since:
26 April 2011

Chairman of the Audit Committee since
28 April 2015

Independent member

Date appointed to Board 
28 April 2015

Education 
Economics – Sorbonne, France
Mechanical Engineering – École Centrale Paris, France
Business Administration – Stanford Graduate School of Business, USA

Experience 
Eric Meurice was formerly President and Chief Executive Officer of Netherlands-based ASML Holding, a major provider of advanced technology systems for the semiconductor industry. He was previously EVP in charge of Thomson Multimedia TV Division and held senior positions in several technology groups such as Intel, ITT, and Dell Computer.

External appointments 
Non-Executive Director, Global Blue Group S.A., Switzerland
Non-Executive Director, IPG Photonics Corp, USA
Non-Executive Chairman, Board of Directors, Soitec S.A., France

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2021

Member

Date appointed to Board 
25 April 2019

Education 
Commercial Engineering – Solvay Brussels School of Economics & Management, Belgium

Experience 
Laurent Raets joined Groupe Bruxelles Lambert (GBL) in 2006 and became Deputy Head of Investments in 2016. He began his career in 2002 as an M&A consultant at Deloitte Corporate Finance, where he was involved in buy and sell mandates, due diligence and valuation assignments.

External appointments 
Censor of the Board of Directors of Imerys S.A., France

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2022

Member of the Audit Committee since
25 April 2019

Member

Date appointed to Board 
30 April 2020

Education 
Law - University Complutense of Madrid, Spain

Experience 
Mr Armero started his professional career at the Armero Law firm and later joined AT&T Spain. From 1992 to 1999 he served as Secretary General at General Electric Plastics Spain. In September 1999 he was appointed Chairman of General Electric Plastics Spain, a position which he held until 2001, when he was appointed Chairman and CEO of General Electric Spain and Portugal, being the ultimate responsible for all of the Group’s Divisions in Iberia. In March 2008, he joinedCorporación Llorente, a diversified family owned industrial group, as CEO. Following that he joined Ezentis as Executive Chairman. From 2012 until 2020, Mr Armero has been the Executive Vice President of ANFAC, the Spanish Car manufacturers association.

External appointments

Advisor of Global Infrastructure Partners.
Chairman of ENSO
Independent Board member of Bankinter Consumer Finance
Member of the CEDE Foundation (Spanish Confederation of Executives)
Board member of non lucrative association Junior Achievement

Expiration of mandate
Annual General Meeting of 2023

Honorary Chairman