The Management Board

The Euler Hermes Management Board is composed of five members:

Wilfried Verstraete, Chairman of the Management Board, in charge of Market Management, Marketing, Commercial, Distribution and Multinational Business

Wilfried Verstraete was appointed chairman of the Euler Hermes Group on 1st April 2009. In top of being in charge of Market Management, Marketing, Commercial, Distribution and Multinational Business, he coordinates all group activities. He is also in charge at group level of strategy, internal audit, communication and the careers of the top executives. Finally, hesupervises the activities of the group in the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Italy and the Netherlands.

From 1996 to 2004, Wilfried Verstraete worked at the France Telecom Group where he successively held the position of Chief Finance Officer (CFO) with Mobistar in Belgium, Wanadoo in Paris and Orange in London. He served as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Atradius from 2004 to 2006, before joining Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty as CFO.
Wilfried Verstraete, a Belgian citizen, graduated in Economics from the University of Brussels (VUB), holds a Master’s degree in financial management from VLEKHO and is an alumnus from the International Executive Program at Insead.

Gerd-Uwe Baden, member of the Management Board, responsible for
Risk – Information – Claims

German, born in 1955, graduate in law and management from Hamburg University, Gerd-Uwe Baden began his career in 1985 as management consultant with McKinsey & Company specialising in the insurance sector.

In 1991 he was appointed to the Management Committee of Deutsche Versicherung, a subsidiary of Allianz group, responsible for the Organization and Administration department before becoming head of Private Clients. Gerd-Uwe Baden was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Allianz Suisse in January 1998. He joined the Euler Hermes Board of Management in 2004. From 2004 to 2009 he was also Chairman of the Management Board of Euler Hermes Kreditversicherungs-AG (Germany). Currently, he is responsible for Risk, Information and Claims within the Euler Hermes Board of Management.

Frédéric Bizière, member of the board in charge of Market Management, Commercial and Distribution

Frédéric Bizière started his career in 1992 with KPMG audit. In 1995, he moved to Banque Française du Commerce Extérieur (since renamed Natixis). He joined the Euler Hermes group in 1998 as head of the accounting department at Euler Hermes Sfac, the French entity of the group. He was appointed Corporate Secretary in 2004 and joined the Euler Hermes Sfac Management Board in 2005. In January 2010, he was appointed Head of the Group Commercial and Distribution function where he has successfully steered the global integration of the commercial and distribution teams and created the group commercial underwriting unit.

Frédéric Bizière is French and graduated from HEC (French school of management).

Nicolas Hein, member of the Management Board, responsible for Finance, Compliance, Legal & Tax

Born in Luxembourg in 1959, Nicolas Hein graduated in Economics at the “Université Libre” in Brussels.

He started his career in 1982 with Price Waterhouse Benelux before joining the Olivetti group for 7 years. In 1993 he joined Medeol (Eridania Beghin-Say group) as Financial Controller in Brussels before becoming Chief Financial Officer in 1995 (Paris), a position he also held with Cerestar for the period 1999 to 2001. From 2001, he was Chief Financial Officier of the Quick Group in Brussels heading the finance and administration functions (Belgium and France).
He was appointed Group Chief Financial Officer of Euler Hermes and member of the Group's Board of Management in 2004. Since 2010 he is also responsible for the areas Compliance, Legal and Tax.

Dirk Oevermann, member of the Management Board, responsible for Operations and IT

Dirk Oevermann joined the Euler Hermes group as member of the Management Board on 1st February 2010, in charge of operations and IT.
After holding various management positions at well-known software companies in the financial services industry, Dirk Oevermann joined IDS Scheer in 2003 as the manager of the consulting unit for banking. IDS Scheer is the market leader in Business Process Management (BPM) software, solutions and services for corporations and public organizations worldwide.

In 2005 Dirk Oevermann was named a managing director of IDS Scheer Germany, where he was responsible for consulting business in Germany. From 2006 to 2010 he served as member of the Executive Board of IDS Scheer AG, in charge of Europe, Middle East and Africa and he led the international consulting business.
Dirk Oevermann, 45, German, holds a doctorate in business administration.