About EFQM

EFQM is a not for profit, membership Foundation. In addition to the EFQM Management Team based in Brussels, a Board of Directors oversees EFQM’s operations. It is supported by a Strategy Committee, a Finance and Audit Committee and a Nomination and HR Committee.

The EFQM BOARD OF DIRECTORS’ role is to ensure that EFQM’s strategy and its implementation are aligned with the mission of the Foundation, taking into account the views and expectations of all stakeholder groups. Directors are elected for a two-year period. They elect one of them to Chair the Board.

Paul is at the helm of Scotland’s leading college and is responsible for developing a new £228M world class twin campus in the heart of Glasgow’s Learning Quarter and along the River Clyde. Paul has successfully led and transformed five UK colleges and has earned a national reputation as one of the education sector’s leading reformers. He has studied with leading European business schools and is a graduate of the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. As a qualified yacht skipper, Paul served as a HM Coastguard Officer for 30 years and completed tours of duty with the US Coastguard.

Sophie Bechu joined Philips as Executive Vice President and Chief of Operations in September 2016. Sophie has extensive experience in operations, service delivery, procurement, supply chain, quality, engineering and strategic outsourcing. She has international experience working in Europe, Hong Kong, India and the USA. She leads Philips’ improvement in our operational excellence and drives our Order to Cash (O2C) initiative as the operational backbone of the company. This covers everything from the way the company receives a customer order, to producing the goods or services, to delivery, invoicing, collecting payments and offering a global, consistent service experience to customers. Her key responsibilities included customer satisfaction, compliance and service level. Sophie holds a degree in Engineering from the Ecole Superieure d’Electricite, Paris, France.

Dr Waleed Salman, EVP Business Development and Excellence at Dubai Electricity and Water Authority, has been appointed to the EFQM Board. Dr Salman has gained more than two decades of experience in the Energy Sector, specifically Electricity and Water. His career began in the UAE at the Federal Electricity and Water Authority (FEWA) in 1992 as an Electrical Engineer. After many years of development, in 2007, he became Deputy General Manager for Technical Affairs in FEWA; furthermore, he was assigned by UAE Electricity Interconnection High Committee to handle the Emirates National Grid Project. This project interconnected all UAE Electrical networks into one single grid and was successfully completed in 2008. In 2009, he was assigned as a member of the Supreme Council of Energy of Dubai - a council that undertakes all Energy activities for the Emirate of Dubai. Dr Salman has been instrumental in DEWA’s world-leading excellence initiatives and brings world-leading utilities experience to the board.

Elodie Buronfosse is a senior finance executive, from the French global transport group, Keolis, to the Board of EFQM. Elodie is a passionate advocate of EFQM and will provide insight into the global transport industry and also lend her financial and transformation expertise to the Board Finance Committee. After receiving her masters from ICN Business School, Elodie joined PwC, first in Paris, then in Lyon, where her clients represented a range of major French and International private and public organisations. In 2014, Elodie joined Keolis Lyon that operates the public transport network of Lyon (2nd largest public transport network in France – 4500 employees). Her initial role was to work on the tender offer process that led to the renewal of the 6 years and 2.5 billion euros public service partnership contract, before becoming deputy CFO of the company in 2016. In October 2019, Elodie was appointed CFO South East, France at Keolis Groupe – a division of around 40 transportation businesses stretching from Burgundy to the Riviera.

Robert Engelhorn has been in charge of the BMW Group’s Munich plant since August 2018. In 2011, Engelhorn, who holds a doctorate in engineering, left the truck and commercial vehicle manufacturer MAN to join the BMW Group. He initially worked at the Munich-based carmaker’s Research and Innovation Center (FIZ) as Head of Planning Body-in-White and Plant Engineering before moving on to the Regensburg plant in 2013, where he assumed responsibility for the three production areas of press shop, body shop and paint shop. From 2014 to 2018, Engelhorn worked in China and was responsible for production and purchasing in the joint venture with Brilliance Automotive. In this role, he also managed two vehicle plants and one engine plant of the BMW Group in Dadong and Tiexi, respectively.

After having completed the studies of industrial engineering and management at the Technichal University of Graz, Hans started his career in the family business Kostwein Maschinenbau KG. Today, he is managing director of the Kostwein Group which incorporates 4 sites in Carinthia (Austria), one site in Croatia (founded in 2001) and one site in India (founded in 2010). In 2014, he was nominated to become a member of the EFQM-Board where he represents the small and medium enterprises of the machine industry.

Christoph Pietsch was appointed in 2015 as Senior Vice President Field Quality Board, and in 2022, in addition, to Senior Vice President Corporate Quality Management for the entire Robert Bosch GmbH. He started his career at Robert Bosch in 1995 as a Manufacturing Trainee in Blaichach and has worked in Germany, Japan and France in Manufacturing, Manufacturing Planning, and Special Machinery Construction and Development. From 2008 - to 2011, he was Vice President for the Bosch Production System before taking over a Vice President position in Quality Management. He studied mechanical engineering at the TU Braunschweig.

Educator and expert in learning innovation, Nieves Segovia is President of SEK Education Group, comprising of University Camilo José Cela and SEK International Schools. SEK was founded in 1892. The group currently has nine schools in Spain, France, Ireland and Qatar, as well as UCJC University in Madrid, with over 15,000 students. Nieves Segovia sits on the Education Advisory Board of the Spanish Ministry of Education. She chairs the Felipe Segovia Foundation and is a member of the board of trustees of Fundación Europea Sociedad y Educación, and Fundación Transforma España. She is Vice-Chair of the Global Sports Innovation Center, the Club Excelencia en Gestión and the Edutech Cluster Spain. She is also a member of Ashoka Support Network. She founded and promotes the Global Education Forum, a community of education innovators, and SEK Lab, the first accelerator of Ed Tech start-ups in Spain. In 2017 she launched the UCJC Integra Programme, a university refugee education scheme, which has now been joined by Sphera, a cross-cultural social entrepreneurship hub, and EachTeach, a global refugee teacher training initiative. Among other awards, Nieves Segovia has received the UNICEF Prize for Education in Values and is recognised among the most influential women in education. She is a regular speaker at education forums and writes frequently for the media and specialised magazines. Nieves Segovia is a 2019 Harvard Advanced Leadership Initiative Fellow. Harvard University’s Advanced Leadership Initiative is a year-long, cross-disciplinary program designed to prepare experienced leaders to tackle complex social challenges.

Charu is a People, Change and Talent executive with over 25 years of management and technology consulting experience selling and delivering large-scale complex Business and IT transformation programs in Financial Services, Consumer Goods, Life Sciences and Telecommunications sectors. She is a People and Talent specialist experienced in organisation change & learning, talent & sustainable workforce strategies, leadership development and culture transformations. Charu is passionate about building and driving high-performance organisations and teams, as well as supporting D&I initiatives within the organisations she supports. She has global leadership experience, having worked and lived across three continents, leading client and internal teams in the US, UK, Switzerland, France, India and Singapore. Charu has an MBA from Loyola University, Chicago and a Masters in History from Madras University, India.