Heinrich Hiesinger (below, left), already a member of the Siemens board and previously president of Siemens Building Technologies, has been appointed to be chief executive of the Industry sector. He will be part of a board that has been slimmed own from 11 to eight members. Klaus Wucherer, the previously leader of A&D, has stepped down from the board, but will continue to act as a consultant.

Within Industry, there are six divisions: industry automation; motion control; industry solutions; building technologies; mobility; and the Osram lighting business.

Anton Huber (above, centre), previously a member of the A&D management team, has been appointed chief executive of the industry automation division. His counterpart in the motion control division is Klaus Helmrich (above, right), formerly head of the standard drives division.

The new Industry sector has about 209,000 employees and last year generated revenues of around €40bn. Siemens says that the sector’s target markets are growing by about 5% a year, and will be worth almost €500bn by 2010.

There was a slight hiccough in the transition process when the man originally named to be chief financial officer of the Industry sector, Hannes Apitzsch, was withdrawn as a precautionary measure to allow compliance screening arising out of an ongoing bribery case involving Siemens. "Siemens aims at standing for the highest performance, at the highest ethical level," commented Löscher. "We will not tolerate uncertainties of any kind."