FRANKFURT – Christian Friege, chief executive of German photo service provider Cewe, obstructed diversity and the appointment of a woman as a board member, the company’s board of trustees said on Friday.
The announcement came in an unusual and harshly worded statement that sought to clarify a decision announced in March not to reappoint Friege for unspecified differing opinions over corporate management.
“Christian Friege’s failure to recognize and implement the socially and internally important issue of women on the Board of Management and in other management functions is, in the opinion of Chairman Rolf Hollander, an inexcusable omission,” Friday’s statement said.
Friege did not promote diversity or the process of naming a woman to the board, “but on the contrary massively obstructed it”, the statement said.
Friege did not respond to an email and a LinkedIn message seeking comment.
A spokesperson for CEWE said the management board that Friege chairs does not make management board appointments, and that four women had been promoted to executive leadership positions in the past few years.
In Friday’s statement, the board of trustees described Friege’s work at the German small-cap company as “acceptable to good” overall, but two-thirds of the members of the board of trustees were “firmly convinced” Friege didn’t enjoy the trust for a reappointment.
(Reporting by Tom Sims; Editing by Leslie Adler)