Complexul Energetic Oltenia (CEN Oltenia) is in the process of being created by merger of the Turceni, Rovinari and Craiova energy complexes with the mines of the National Lignite Company Oltenia (SNLO). The new entity will have 20,000 employees, EUR1 billion in revenue and control over 30% of the energy generation market.
Kienbaum, a company with over EUR100 million in revenue, has a very tight deadline to meet, because the International Monetary Fund wants a new manager at the helm of CEN Oltenia by this fall. Moreover, the installation of a new government raises doubts about whether processes started by the former cabinet continue or not.
“The IMF wants the new CEO of CEN Oltenia selected by September or October at the latest. I don’t know how feasible this deadline is, but I hope to have a CEO selected who has accepted the offer by that time. It’s a very tight term because chief executives are usually required to give a three-month notice and on top of that, this is when the holiday period starts,” explains Loreda Dragomir-Theodorescu, country manager for Romania and Bulgaria of Kienbaum, which won the contract to pick a CEO for CEN Oltenia on Monday.
Loreda Dragomir-Theodorescu would not reveal the value of the contract, but a headhunter usually gets 30% of the gross salary packages of the executive recruited in their first year on the new job. Rates charged for recruiting a CEO for a large company in Romania range from EUR20,000 to EUR25,000 in net amount.
The appointment of professional managers to run state-owned companies has been discussed for almost a year now, with no results so far. The Romanian government was pressured by the IMF into this decision, because state-owned companies have been managed by people appointed solely on political criteria for years and as such have either posted huge losses or performed much worse than they should have. The first companies to get private management should be CEN Oltenia, Hidroelectrica, Romarm and Oltchim.
The main challenge here is that beyond the appointments of managers based on political criteria, the boards of directors of the state-run companies are full of people who have absolutely no connection with the field they manage and who eventually approve propositions from the executives. The Kienbaum representative admits this is her biggest fear after all and says she thinks a new board of directors should be appointed along with the new CEO.
“I intend to interview tens, hundreds of people and I am convinced there will be interest in it. I have already started a bit of headhunting. It’s a challenging mission in several respects. First of all, it is a professional challenge and then it’s about a very good salary package.”
Loreda Dragomir-Theodorescu says the search for the new CEO for CEN Oltenia will be conducted both in Romania and abroad.
“The contract will be signed in ten days (the winner was announced on Monday i.e.) and in June we will be able to come up with a long list of candidates. The list may include as many as over 100 names. We should be able to have the evaluation and the short list presented in July or August.”
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)