Leaseurope, the trade body representing the leasing and automotive rental industries in Europe has elected Jukka Salonen (FI) as its new chair. Messrs. Massimiliano Moi (IT) and Stephane Soille (BE) have been elected Vice-Chairs.

The newly elected Board of Directors is now comprised of the following 12 persons appointed for a 2 year mandate:

Chair

Jukka Salonen, CEO, Nordea Finance

Vice-chairs     

Massimiliano Moi, CEO, UniCredit Leasing

Stephane Soille, General Manager CH/AT/BE/LU/CZ/NL, Avis Europe Group

Other Board Members           

José António Beja Amaro, President, Associação Portuguesa de Leasing, Factoring e Renting

Alex Baldock, Managing Director, Lombard

Vahid Daemi, CEO, LeasePlan Corporation

Michel Denis, CEO, Fraikin Locatime

Andrzej Krzeminski, CEO, Europejski Fundusz Leasingowy (EFL)

Jean-Marc Mignerey, CEO, SG Equipment Finance

Alexander Schmidecker, CEO BAWAG PSK Leasing GmbH

Martin Starck, Chairman of the Management Board, LBBW Leasing

Alain Vervaet, Supervisory Board Member, ING Lease Holding

The new Leaseurope Board held its first meeting on 9 December. On that occasion, Jukka Salonen thanked outgoing Chair Rüdiger von Fölkersamb for his commitment and relentless efforts in promoting the leasing and automotive rental industries over the past two years. He particularly stressed the instrumental role R. von Fölkersamb played in the recent opening of the ‘European House of Leasing’, Leaseurope’s brand new headquarters in Brussels. This he said “is a powerful tool at our disposal and certainly gives a new impetus to Leaseurope. J. Salonen further thanked R. von Fölkersamb for having “very actively contributed in putting in place an ambitious medium term strategy for the Federation”.

Rüdiger von Fölkersamb commented that the support received during his chairmanship had proven invaluable. He added that it was a pleasure to hand over Leaseurope’s chairmanship to someone he knew "would be able to bring the Federation to the next level by successfully implementing the newly adopted strategy".

Referring to the said strategy, J. Salonen highlighted Leaseurope's ambition to further develop research activities and to strengthen its position as the unique platform for the whole European leasing industry.  

He concluded saying that he was "delighted to be able to rely on such a high quality Board" as the active contribution of all Board members will be much needed, not least in order to ensure that the industry views on lease accounting get across at the highest political level.