The board of Siemens Gamesa has appointed Richard Luijendijk as its new onshore chief executive, and also called an extraordinary shareholders' meeting to vote on a delisting of the wind OEM in the wake of the takeover bid by parent Siemens Energy.

Luijendijk has been head of global projects and chief of the manufacturer’s Asia Pacific region for more than a year, and in October started to assist Siemens Gamesa CEO Jochen Eickholt in the daily management of the global onshore business.

The company at that stage announced that it had parted ways with industry veteran Lars Bondo Krogsgaard as CEO of its struggling onshore wind division and would search for a replacement.

“With his far-reaching expertise in the wind industry, [and] the onshore business… [Luijendijk] is the right candidate to successfully execute our turnaround and return the onshore business to profitability,” Eickholt said.

“The onshore business is a key part of Siemens Gamesa, and we need to put it back on the track to sustainable growth as soon as possible.”

Continued troubles in onshore wind in recent years have pushed the OEM further into the red, with Siemens Gamesa posting a loss of nearly $1bn in its past financial year, but the company repeatedly has said it will stick by onshore and not only concentrate on its more profitable offshore wind division.

“My first priority will be focusing on the execution of the Mistral strategy [turnaround] programme, together with the onshore leadership team, in order to make onshore a profitable and strong business once again,” Luijendijk said.

“There is no time to lose. We need to keep working as one team – in close collaboration with the other businesses and functions – to make it happen.”

The incoming onshore CEO holds a masters in aerospace engineering from the Technical University of Delft in the Netherlands. He joined the Siemens conglomerate in 2000 and since 2015 worked for Siemens Gamesa, where he has held senior positions in sales and projects. He also has experience with a previous – but ultimately unsuccessful – turnaround programme called LEAP in 2020 and 2021, before joining the onshore business.

The board also called for an extraordinary general meeting of shareholders on January 25 in Bilbao, Spain, to vote on the delisting from the Spanish stock exchange after parent Siemens Energy held a cash tender offer for the about a third of shares in the OEM it doesn’t already own. It was accepted by 77.88% of Siemens Gamesa minority shareholders.

The meeting will also vote on a plan to reduce Siemens Gamesa board members from 10 to three with the aim of simplifying the current governance structure and streamlining decision-making.