A politician appointed as new PKN Orlen CEO

He replaced Jacek Walczykowski who was dismissed from the post in August. Chalupec, 38, is the forth and the youngest Orlen's president in the company's history. In the Finance Ministry he was responsible for EU related issues including the EU budget. Prior to becoming a politician he worked for 12 years for bank Pekao SA. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, some of the potential candidates for the post of the PKN Orlen president resigned as they did not want to be linked to a company which is influenced to a such a large degree by politicians. The new Orlen CEO will faces many challenges. The company's profitability needs to be increased and painful cost cutting measures need to be implemented. Moreover, a strategy for the concern's latest acquisition, Czech Unipetrol, has to be worked out. The new president will also have to prepare Orlen to merge with other oil companies from the region, namely, Hungarian MOL and Austrian OMV. (Gazeta Wyborcza, pp.1, 20; Puls Biznesu, p. 5) E.B.