Executive Officers: At the close of the Athens Congress this month, Radu Lotrean (Romania) stepped down as President to become Immediate Past President, Alastair Beveridge (UK) became the new President, Piya Mukherjee (Denmark) became the new Deputy President and Marcel Groenewegen (Netherlands) was elected by Council as incoming Vice President.
Chris Laughton (UK) remains as Treasurer and Caroline Taylor (UK) as Director of Administration.
Council: There were also several changes to the structure of Council. As a reminder, countries with 30 or more members are entitled to a reserved seat on Council and the following situation arose this year:
- A vacancy became available for Spain and France’s reserved seats as Vicente Estrade and Marc Senechal retired from Council.
- Frank Tschentscher came to the end of his first 3 year term of office holding the reserved seat for Germany and agreed to stand for re-election against other nominations.
- Poland lost their reserved seat on Council as membership numbers fell below 30.
Therefore, nominations from members in Spain, France and Germany were invited for candidates from their own country. Following the nomination and election process, Adrian Thery was duly elected to the reserved seat for Spain for his first 3 year term of office, Jean Baron to the reserved seat for France for his first 3 year term of office and Frank Tschentscher to the reserved seat for Germany for his second 3 year term of office.
One non-reserved seat vacancy on Council also became available (which may be occupied by any country) as Piya Mukherjee (Denmark) had been appointed as Vice President in the previous year. 2 nominations were received and following the election process, the successful candidate was Laurent Le Pajolec (representing Poland).
Each year, Council may co-opt or re co-opt a maximum of 8 members to Council and this year the following members were appointed: Michael Veder (Netherlands), as chair of the Academic Forum, Catherine Ottaway (France), as representative of INSOL International and Constitution specialist, Wolf Waschkuhn (UK), as co-chair of STF 2025, Steffen Koch (Germany) as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing and co-chair of STF 2025, Evert Verwey (Netherlands), as co-chair of EECC, Robert van Galen (Netherlands), as EU co-chair and Brexit matters, Alberto Nunez-Lagos as co-chair of the Turnaround Wing and our newcomer Georges-Louis Harang (France), as co-chair of the Young Members Group.
Honorary Membership for outstanding meritorious service on behalf of the Association was awarded to Heinz Vallender (Germany), chair of the Judicial Wing, who steps down after 13 years of service and also Alberto Nunez-Lagos (Spain), Past President and co-chair of the Turnaround Wing.
Secretariat: Wendy Cooper retired from the Secretariat and was duly thanked for her 11 years of service. Wendy will be missed by all colleagues and members who knew her during her time as INSOL Europe’s Membership and Conference Registrations Co-ordinator and we wish her well for the future. Going forward, recently appointed Event Manager, Harriet Taylor, will take charge of Conference Registrations and Hannah Denney will take charge of Membership, to become Sponsorship & Membership Manager