OREANDA-NEWS. April 20, 2009. Wolfgang Clement, a prominent German public official and politician, initiator and participant of economic reforms in Germany, Federal Minister of Economics and Labor in the Cabinet of Gerhard Schroder has joined the Board of Directors of the Energy Consulting Group as Deputy Chairman of the Board, reported the press-centre of Energy Consulting.

Wolfgang Clement was born in July 7th, 1940 in Bochum. He graduated from the University of Munster with a law degree. He started his career as a journalist, and finally he became Editor-in-Chief of the famous german newspapers "Westfalische Rundschau" and "Hamburger Morgenpost".

In the early nineties he held different ministerial posts in the Governement of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, and finally he became Premier of it in 1998. From 2002 to 2005 he was Federal Minister of Economics and Labour in the Governement of Gerhard Schroder.

Wolfgang Clement is a member of the Management Board of RWE Power AG, a leading German automic company, integrated with Management Boards of other local and international companies, Chairman of Adecco Institute, London. Since September 2008 he is in charge of the EU-Russia summits in Brussels.

The decision to invite Wolfgang Clement to the Board of Directors of Energy Consulting is stipulated by the strategic plans of the group management for more intensive development of the international relations and the integration into the global IT-landscape, further expansion of the cooperation with global IT-software suppliers for business management.

"I am pleased with the fact that I am a member of the Board of the Energy Consulting Group and I have a chance to make a contribution to the development of Russian hi-tech consulting business. – remarked Wolfgang Clement. – Development of international relations and integration of Russian businesses into the global economic environment, increase of Russian-German economic cooperation, in particular in the IT industry, will contribute to a common economic space".

"Wolfgang Clement, to our credit, has accepted our proposal and he has joined the Board of EC as an independent expert, – emphasized Mikhail Ponomarev, Chairman of the Board of Directors, the Energy Consulting Group. – Wolfgang Clement’s standing in the global business-community, his opinion and experience as an expert of current economic relations, his views on business prospects, encourage us to expand our cooperation with international partners, to ensure senergy of best world practices, and finally, to increase the level of business services".

Among the other members, who joined the Board of the Energy Consulting Group, was Walter Nebgen, an advisor in field of foreign affairs, an international tax advisor. Walter Nebgen represents the interests of Energy Consulting in Europe.

The Energy Consulting Group promptly develops its cooperation with foreign partners. It has the highest local partner status SAP AG - Alliance Service Local Partner, and in 2007 the company was declared as the best partner–participant of the SAP projects. In 2008 it was nominated by the SAP Central Office for granting a world status - SAP Diamond Partner.

The company has signed an agreement with British company SAGE, a leading global supplier of simple ERP-solutions, an agreement with Swedish consulting group Acando for providing managing consulting services, system integration, ERP-implementation, based on the SAP & Microsoft software. Energy Consulting is a partner of many global hardware and software suppliers such as Microsoft, IBM, Westbury, Cisco, HP, Check Point and others with the relevant partners’ statuses. According to the 2008 ranking results, Energy Consulting has been recognized as the best Russian HP partner within a category "HP Software partner of the year".