Members of the Supervisory Board
The Supervisory Board had the following ten members as of 31 December 2017:
Günter Geyer
Chairman
Year of birth: 1943
First appointed on: 2014
End of current term of office: 2019
Günter Geyer joined Wiener Städtische in 1974 and was appointed to the Managing Board in 1988. In 2001, he became General Manager and Chairman of the Managing Board. Working in a variety of positions in Austria and the CEE region, he played a major role in VIG’s evolution into a successful international insurance group. Günter Geyer resigned from his position as Chairman of the Managing Board of VIG on 31 May 2012 and has held the position of Chairman of the Supervisory Board since 2014. He is the Chairman of the Managing Board of Wiener Städtische Wechselseitigen Versicherungsverein, the principal shareholder of VIG.
Rudolf Ertl
1st Deputy Chairman
Year of birth: 1946
First appointed on: 2014
End of current term of office: 2019
Rudolf Ertl is Doctor of Laws and has been with the Group since 1972. Rudolf Ertl was Member of the Managing Board of Wiener Städtische until the end of 2008 and a Member of the Managing Board at Donau Versicherung until June 2009. He is a Member of the Managing Board of Wiener Städtische Wechselseitiger Versicherungsverein, the principal shareholder of Vienna Insurance Group.
Maria Kubitschek
2nd Deputy Chairwoman
Year of birth: 1962
First appointed on: 2014
End of current term of office: 2019
After completing her studies in social sciences and economics at the University of Vienna, Maria Kubitschek began working for the Vienna Chamber of Labour in 1988. After holding a variety of management positions, she was Head of the Economic Division at the Vienna Chamber of Labour since 2001, with a short interruption from 2011 until 2013 (management position in the cabinet of the Austrian Federal Ministry for Transport, Innovation and Technology), and has been Deputy Director of the Vienna Chamber of Labour since in 2016. She is also a Member of the Managing Board of the Austrian Institute of Economic Research (WIFO).
Bernhard Backovsky
Year of birth: 1943
First appointed on: 2002
End of current term of office: 2019
Provost Bernhard Backovsky was ordained a priest in 1967 and elected the 66th provost of the Klosterneuburg Monastery in December 1995 - a position he still holds today. From 2002 until 2017, he was also Abbot General of the Austrian Congregation of the Canons Regular of St. Augustine, and from 2010 to 2016 he was Abbot Primate of the same congregation. In addition to numerous other honours, at the end of 2010 he received the Grand Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria for supporting the Foundation for Street Children in Romania. Vienna Insurance Group and the Klosterneuburg Monastery have been in a partnership for many years. The former provost of the monastery, Gaudenz Dunkler, was one of the founding fathers of “Wechselseitige k.k. priv. Brandschaden-Versicherungs-Anstalt” in 1824, which later developed into Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein and then into Wiener Städtische and Vienna Insurance Group.
Martina Dobringer
Year of birth: 1947
First appointed on: 2011
End of current term of office: 2019
Martina Dobringer has held management positions at the Coface Group since 1989 and was General Manager and Chairwoman of the Managing Board of Coface Austria Holding AG from 2001 to 2011. In 2011, she was awarded the Grand Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria, and in 2006 she became the first Austrian businesswoman to receive the highest French honour (“Chevalier dans l’ordre de la Légion”).
Gerhard Fabisch
Year of birth: 1960
First appointed on: 2017
End of current term of office: 2019
Gerhard Fabisch studied business administration at the University of Graz and economics at the University of Vienna. In 1985, he joined Steiermärkische Bank und Sparkassen AG. His path took him through a wide variety of areas in the company. In 2001, he was appointed Director of the Managing Board, and in 2004 as Chairman of the Managing Board. He has also been President of the Austrian Sparkassenverband since 2014.
Heinz Öhler
Year of birth: 1945
First appointed on: 2002
End of current term of office: 2019
Heinz Öhler joined the Tiroler Gebietskrankenkasse in 1970, where he initially held a position as Manager of the Finance Department and later held an executive position until 2011. In March 2007, he was awarded the Grand Silver Medal of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria for his work related to Austrian social security. Handball has been one of his passions since he was a child and he has held many positions in the sports world, including being appointed as a Member of the Tyrolean State Sports Council in November 2016.
Georg Riedl
Year of birth: 1959
First appointed on: 2014
End of current term of office: 2019
After completing his legal studies at the University of Vienna, Georg Riedl worked as an independent lawyer since 1991. His areas of expertise include company law, mergers and acquisitions, private foundation law and tax law.
Gabriele Semmelrock-Werzer
Year of birth: 1958
First appointed on: 2017
End of current term of office: 2019
After holding positions at the Austrian branches of Chase Manhattan Bank AG and Crèdit Lyonnais AG, Gabriele Semmelrock-Werzer worked for Erste Group Bank AG since 1995 in Investor Relations, and later on in the areas of commercial clients, international financial institutions and the retail client business. She has been Director of the Managing Board of Kärntner Sparkasse AG since 2011.
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell
Year of birth: 1952
First appointed on: 2012
End of current term of office: 2019
Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell was Vice Governor of the National Bank of Austria (OeNB) from 1998 to 2003 and Member of its Board of Directors from 1997 to 2003. During this period, she was also the Austrian Vice Governor to the International Monetary Fund and a Member of the Economic and Financial Committee - the most important economic policy advisory committee of the European Union. Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell was responsible for the Economics and Financial Markets divisions at the National Bank of Austria. From 2003 to 2011, she was a Member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank.
Changes during the reporting year
Reinhard Ortner deceased on 21 January 2017.
Karl Skyba resigned from his position as 1st Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board as of 30 April 2017. During a meeting on 6 April 2017, the Supervisory Board appointed Rudolf Ertl to take his place as 1st Deputy Chairman of the Supervisory Board as of 1 May 2017. Karl Skyba was formally discharged from the Supervisory Board by the VIG General Meeting held on 12 May 2017.
Gerhard Fabisch and Gabriele Semmelrock-Werzer were elected to join the Vienna Insurance Group Supervisory Board during the General Meeting held on 12 May 2017.