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KNDS appoints Philippe Balducchi as Chief Financial Officer

Amsterdam, 27th May 2021

KNDS, the defense technology group which brings together Nexter (France) and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (Germany) to form Europe's leading company for military land systems, is filling the position of its Group Chief Financial Officer with Philippe Balducchi, former CEO of Airbus Canada. Philippe Balducchi will be a member of the KNDS Executive Committee led by CEO Frank Haun. The 57-year-old will assume his new role on September 1, 2021. Until then, the position will be held jointly by Horst Rieder and Nicolas Million, the CFOs of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter.

Philippe Balducchi played a central role in the creation of Airbus Canada, which arose from the partnership between aircraft manufacturer Bombardier Aerospace, the Canadian province of Quebec, and Airbus in July 2018. As the CEO of the company, he led the transformation of the A220 programme and its integration into Airbus with the launch of a new Final Assembly Line for the A220 in the US, a reshaped industrial set up, more than 150 deliveries and an order book that doubled.

Philippe Balducchi began his career in 1988 at US chip manufacturer Harris Semiconductor. This was followed by leadership positions in finance at Matra, before he moved to Airbus in 2001. There, he was CFO of Airbus North America, Head of Investor Relations for Airbus Group in Toulouse, and Head of Performance Management for Airbus' commercial aircraft business, until he took over the leadership of Airbus Canada in 2018. He is an aviation engineer and holds an MBA from the École des Hautes Études Commerciales.

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Press contact

Dr. Kurt Braatz
Chief Communications Officer
Phone: +31 20 218 4710
E-Mail: kurt.braatz (at) knds.nl

KNDS (KMW+NEXTER Defense Systems) arose from the merger of Krauss-Maffei Wegmann and Nexter, two of the leading European manufacturers of military land systems, based in Germany and France. KNDS forms a Group of around 9,000 employees, with a 2022 turnover of 3.2 billion euro, an order backlog of around 11 billion euro and incoming orders of 3.4 billion euro. The range of its products includes main battle tanks, armored vehicles, artillery systems, weapons systems, ammu-nition, military bridges, customer services, battle management systems, training solutions, protection solutions and a wide range of equipment. The formation of KNDS marks the beginning of the consolidation of the industry for military land systems in Europe. The strategic alliance between KMW and Nexter strengthens the competitiveness and international position of both companies as well as their ability to meet the requirements of the armies of their respective nations. In addition, this alliance gives its European and NATO customers a reliable industrial base to increasingly standardise and align their defence technology with each other. KNDS headquarters are based in Amsterdam.