Barbara Kux

Speaker at the St. Gallen Symposium

Barbara Kux is a recognized Board Director with an extensive international executive and board experience. She acts as Member of the Supervisory Board, the Nomination and Sustainability Committee of Henkel and on Advisory Boards for INSEAD, the Max Schmidheiny Stiftung and the University of Zurich. Previous Board of Director’s mandates were with TotalEnergies and Firmenich, including chairing Audit and ESG committees. The EU Commission has nominated her to the High Level Panel for Decarbonisation to give strategic advice on green innovation and technologies in Europe. She also acts as main lecturer for Sustainability at the University of St. Gallen and as Director for Corporate Governance at INSEAD. As Member of the Jury for the Digital Price Germany of McKinsey and Handelsblatt she is in touch with key innovators in Europe. From 2008 until 2013 Barbara Kux was the first female Member of the Managing Board of Siemens. There she increased results from the growth of green businesses and supply chain management by several billions of euros, just as she had done previously at Royal Philips where she was a Member of the Group Management Committee for supply management and sustainability. Preceding she held senior executive roles at ABB, Nestle and Ford Motor Company driving growth in emerging markets. She holds an MBA from INSEAD with distinction and started her career as Management Consultant of McKinsey in Germany. Barbara Kux has been repeatedly ranked as one of the leading women in international business by Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. In 2024 the Swiss Economic Forum recognized Barbara Kux with their SEF Women Honorary Award.