Green Hydrogen Systems (GHS) has appointed René Umlauft as its new CEO, following a “challenging period” for the company.
The incoming CEO will replace Peter Friis who was appointed in 2023. The announcement comes shortly after the Danish electrolyser manufacturer revealed cost-cutting and restructuring measures in response to slow market adoption of hydrogen and delays in commercialising its X-Series electrolyser.
Read more:Green Hydrogen Systems undergoes major restructure to cut costs by 50%
“Q3 has been a challenging period for GHS,” claimed Thomas Broe-Andersen, Chairman of the Board of Directors at GHS.
“With the current situation GHS is facing, we need to execute a different strategy with the purpose of ensuring a sustainable and profitable future for GHS. I would like to thank Peter Friis for his work and contribution as CEO of GHS since 2023.
“We have agreed to let another profile execute the important tasks we will be initiating in this turnaround of the company. We see René Umlauft as the right profile to take over as CEO with competencies from complex industries within the green transition as well as significant business transformation and restructuring experience.”
Commenting on his appointment, Umlauft claimed the latest “strategic decisions” from the board will ensure a strong future for the company. He’s expected to work closely with Michael Kaalund, the Chief Financial Officer (CFO).
As revealed earlier this month (October), GHS plans to discontinue sales of its A-Series alkaline electrolyser to focus on the 6MW X-Series system. However, the firm will continue to manufacture and deliver outstanding orders until its backlog is completed in 2025.
To improve the commercial offering of the X-Series, GHS has stated it intends to reduce costs by 40-50% by 2026 as it hopes to break even earlier than original projections.
GHS previously told H2 View that it had experienced “teething problems” with its A-Series solution, which it has “dealt with and captured valuable learnings from.”
Due to slower-than-anticipated development and commercialisation, the company was forced to undertake a major restructuring of its operations, with around 100 jobs being cut to reduce its cost base by at least 40-50%.
GHS announced that this will incur one-off implementation costs of DKK 100-150m ($14.7m-22m), spread across the remainder of 2024 and 2025.
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