Gerard Kleisterlee

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Gerard Kleisterlee is the current President and Chief Executive Officer of Philips and Chairman of the Board of Management and the Group Management Committee.

He was born in Germany in 1946 to a Dutch & German couple and was raised in the Netherlands. He was educated by the Jesuits, although he now describes himself as a "non practising Catholic".^{[citation needed]} Nonetheless ^{[opinion needs balancing]} he accepted an Honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven in 2005. He studied at Eindhoven University of Technology and became an electronic engineer, and like his father he has worked at Philips all his life.

From 1981 to 1986 he was the General Manager of Philips' Professional Audio Product Group. Mr. Kleisterlee joined Philips Components in 1986, and after becoming General Manager of Philips Display Components for Europe, he was appointed Managing Director of Philips Display Components Worldwide in 1994. He became President of Philips Taiwan and Regional Manager for Philips Components in Asia-Pacific in 1996. From September 1997 to June 1998 he was also responsible for all the activities of the Philips group in China (see [1]).

Kleisterlee determined not only to transform Philips' image with consumers but also turn it into a high-growth, high-tech company, something that more than 10 years of restructuring, under two predecessors, failed to do. Since becoming CEO he has done the following (as per [2]):

• a) replaced all of the top executives at Philips' consumer-electronics division in the USA
• b) outsourced the production of mobile phone handsets and VCRs
• c) cut the number of factories from 269 to 160
• d) sold a number of low-growth businesses such as fax machines
• e) slashed overhead
• f) forced divisions to share services to achieve cost savings

Kleisterlee was named 2006 Europe Businessman of the Year by Fortune magazine ([3]).