Financial Times: Voser goes
Jun 25, 2004
Jürgen Dormann wasted no time reaching for the phone yesterday to quash rumours that Peter Voser was quitting ABB because of being passed over for the chief executive's job earlier this year.
The slot relinquished by Dormann, who remains chairman of the Swiss- Swedish engineering group, went in February to Sulzer's Fred Kindle. Dormann said Voser, an affable 45-year-old Swiss returning to Royal Dutch/Shell after two years, had not put his name forward for the ABB post.
Linking the two events "makes no sense", said Dormann - although Observer's man behind the cuckoo clock hears Voser wouldn't have minded being asked.
But was canny Dormann (who will himself be taking a new career step next week by joining the board of temporary employment group Adecco) entirely surprised at the departure, given the state of flux at Shell, where Voser had worked for 20 years?
"I won't answer that. But let's just say I was familiar with the situation," comes the gnomic reply.
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