By Valerie Insinna
(Reuters) -Boeing Co has nominated the head of a Paris-headquartered utility company to become a new member of its board of directors, the first to be based in Europe, the company said Thursday.
Boeing shareholders will vote on the nomination of Sabrina Soussan, chief executive of water and waste management company SUEZ SA, at its annual meeting on April 18.
If elected, she will become the first board member based outside the United States and the eighth independent director to join the board since April 2019.
Soussan, who has German and French nationality, would sit on the board’s audit and finance committees, Boeing said.
Boeing’s board of directors has weathered several high-profile departures in the wake of the 737 MAX crisis, including those of U.S. ambassadors Caroline Kennedy and Nikki Haley in January 2021 and March 2020.
Boeing Chair Larry Kellner praised Sousson’s “extensive engineering and senior leadership experience” in areas such as manufacturing, safety and sustainability.
Soussan, who became CEO of SUEZ in 2022, spent more than 20 years at Siemens in leadership positions in the autonomy, sustainability and energy management sectors.
(Reporting by Valerie Insinna; Editing by Jan Harvey)