ESSEN (dpa-AFX) - Employee representatives at the industrial group Thyssenkrupp have expressed concern about the announced departure of Chief Financial Officer Jens Schulte. "The surprising departure of Mr. Schulte is very irritating," said Jürgen Kerner, the second chairman of IG Metall, who is also deputy chairman of Thyssenkrupp's supervisory board, to the "Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" (WAZ). "The suspicion arises that he only joined Thyssenkrupp as a stopgap or that there are internal disagreements. Clarification is needed here."

Schulte (53) only took up his post on June 1. On Thursday, the company announced that Schulte wanted to move to Deutsche Borse as Chief Financial Officer and therefore asked to resign from the Executive Board. "We respect Mr. Schulte's wish to seize the opportunity presented to him to move to the Executive Board of a DAX company, even though we very much regret his departure from the Executive Board of Thyssenkrupp AG," said Siegfried Russwurm, Chairman of the Supervisory Board.

It is not yet known exactly when Schulte will leave. According to the announcement on Monday, he will remain Chief Financial Officer until then and will also take over the duties of Chief Human Resources Officer from February 1.

Thyssenkrupp suffered a loss of 1.4 billion euros in the last financial year 2023/24, mainly due to high impairments in the steel division. The division is currently facing a far-reaching reorganization in which a total of 11,000 of the current 27,000 jobs are to be cut or outsourced. In the dispute over the realignment of the division, three steel board members left the company at the end of August.

Chief Human Resources Officer Burkhard also leaves thyssenkrupp's Executive Board

Schulte's departure is not the only surprising personnel move in recent times. Last week, Thyssenkrupp announced that Oliver Burkhard, Chief Human Resources Officer, would be resigning from his position on the Executive Board in order to concentrate on his role as head of Thyssenkrupp's marine division. On Tuesday, Thyssenkrupp announced that Chief Strategist Cetin Nazikkol had already left the company at the end of November "to pursue new challenges".

"We have noticed that managers are leaving the company in droves - some of them are being forced out harshly, others are leaving voluntarily because they fear for their reputation or have simply had enough of incomprehensible decisions and the new management culture," Kerner told WAZ. The company and its employees needed calm, continuity and concentration on solving the major challenge, he emphasized. "What they are getting is management chaos." /tob/DP/ngu