Neste Oil announced it is to change its structure and organization, in response to developments that have taken place in its businesses and operating environment in recent years. As part of this restructuring, Matti Lehmus has been appointed Executive Vice President, Oil Products.

"Neste Oil has changed rapidly over the last couple of years and this has created a need to change our internal organization," says President & CEO Matti Lievonen. "By updating our organization and top-level responsibilities, we want to clarify and streamline the way we manage our businesses and improve our customer focus and our ability to react to changes in our markets."

The Oil Products and Renewable Products businesses have been represented by one executive vice president on the Neste Executive Board (NEB) up until now, but will now be led by their own executive vice presidents in the revamped Neste Oil organization. The production functions of both businesses will also now become the direct responsibility of each business. Production & Logistics, which previously managed these activities, will cease existence as a separate organization. Logistics will be managed by Oil Products. These changes will not affect Neste Oil's reporting segments, which remain: Oil Products, Renewable Products, Oil Retail, and Others.

Two new members have also been appointed to the Neste Executive Board (NEB) as part of these changes and various changes have been made to the responsibilities of some of the other members of the NEB. All these changes will come into effect as of 16 June, with the exception of the change in the leadership of Oil Retail, which will take place later.

Matti Lehmus (M.Sc. (Eng.), 40), appointed Executive Vice President, Oil Products, was previously responsible for Oil Products & Renewables. Matti Lehmus has a long career in Neste Oil and its predecessors and has extensive expertise of international sales and marketing management in the petroleum products and renewable fuels fields in particular.

Renewable Products will receive a more independent role as a result of the changes, reflecting the fact that it has become a major part of today's Neste Oil. Kaisa Hietala (M.Sc. (Geophysics), M.Phil. (Environmental Science), 43) has been appointed Executive Vice President, Renewable Products and a new member of the NEB. She was previously responsible for the business when it formed part of Oil Products & Renewables.

"Kaisa Hietala has shown what she is capable of in a number of positions at Neste Oil, and has acquired extensive international experience," says Matti Lievonen. "She also played a central part in making Renewable Products a profitable business in just a few years and one that generated some EUR 2.5 billion in revenue for Neste Oil last year."

Executive Vice President, Oil Retail Sakari Toivola will retire by the end of 2014. Antti Tiitola (Business College Graduate, 47), currently Senior Vice President, Passenger Traffic Division at the VR Group, has been appointed as his successor as of 1 December at the latest.

"Antti Tiitola has extensive experience of the retail trade and developing and managing service organizations, through his leadership positions at Lidl's Finnish operations and VR," says Matti Lievonen. "His experience and know-how will be an asset to us as we continue our work to make Neste Oil a more customer-focused company."

Senior Vice President, Production & Logistics Ilkka Poranen, who has been responsible for a number of major plant investments and logistics arrangements, will transfer to new duties within Neste Oil now that Production & Logistics no longer forms part of the company's organization.

All of the members of the NEB report to President & CEO Matti Lievonen.