Klaus Kleinfeld

Klaus Kleinfeld is a German businessman who has been chief executive of Siemens, Alcoa and Arconic. Born in Bremen in 1957, he holds a business degree from the University of Göttingen and a doctorate in management from the University of Würzburg. After starting as a marketing consultant and working at Ciba-Geigy, he joined Siemens in 1987, founded and led Siemens Management Consulting in 1990, became chief operating officer of Siemens USA in 2001 and chief executive of Siemens AG in January 2005. His push to modernize the company, including pressing German unions to extend the working week, brought conflict with defenders of Siemens' traditional culture, and he left in June 2007 as divisions over his contract became public, after a German investigation of slush funds in which no evidence of wrongdoing by him was found. He became Alcoa's chief operating officer in 2007 and its CEO in 2008, was later chairman and CEO of the spin-off Arconic until April 2017, and in October 2017 was named a director of Saudi Arabia's Neom initiative.