Experience is not exactly in short supply in Vattenfall’s management. On average, the ten members of the executive board have been with the energy company for more than 20 years.

However, that average is unlikely to last much longer. Both the head of production, Torbjörn Wahlborg, and Vattenfall’s head of legal affairs, Anne Gynnerstedt, are now leaving the company, Vattenfall announces on Tuesday.

Despite the long process, however, neither of the two directors will be leaving immediately. Gynnerstedt will leave at the end of August, while Wahlborg will remain in the position until a replacement is found.

”Torbjörn’s long career at Vattenfall has meant that he has contributed to many different parts of Vattenfall’s operations. His deep and broad experience has been very valuable to me and to the group management, not least as energy industry embarks up a period of revolutionary change,” says CEO Anna Borg.

In his 34 years at Vattenfall, Wahlborg has literally been all over the place. Back in the 1990s, he was head of the Amager plant in Denmark before moving to Poland at the end of the decade and gradually taking over the management of the energy company’s assets there.

However, it is probably primarily his role as head of Vattenfall’s Swedish nuclear power plants that has made him stand out. In the last decade, among other things, he criticized the Swedish thermal power tax, which nuclear power plants must pay in full, regardless of how often the reactors are in operation. While last year he advocated that new plants should be built instead of pulling old ones out of the bag.

The old discussion about nuclear power has flared up again at Vattenfall. Prompted by the 2022 energy crisis and the new and very nuclear-friendly government, the state-owned energy company has been tasked with expanding its nuclear capacity after decades of steady decline. But it will be without Wahlborg’s leadership.

”My time at Vattenfall has been fantastic. I have had the privilege of working in different countries and with basically every part of the value chain in the electricity sector, but above all with fantastic colleagues,” says the outgoing CEO, who will now instead look towards a board career.

With just a dozen years at Vattenfall, Anne Gynnerstedt is a relative rookie. In her career, however, she has been both on land and in the air with a past at Saab and SAS, among others - in addition to sitting on the board of the Swedish Space Agency. She also pays tribute to her colleagues at her soon-to-be former employer.

”It has been a privilege to be at Vattenfall for 12 years. Energy and the transition we are in the middle of engages everyone. I am proud of what Vattenfall is doing and stands for, and of our committed employees. I have been challenged and had fun at work every day,” she states.

Vattenfall announces that the recruitment process has now started and is open to external candidates as well as employees who are already with the company and can maintain seniority.