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Governance
The Corporate Governance Code recommends that at least half the members (excluding the chairman) of the board of directors of a company with a premium listing should be non-executive directors, independent in character and judgment and free from relationships or circumstances which are likely to affect, or could appear to affect, their judgment.
The Corporate Governance Code recommends that the board should appoint one of its independent non-executive directors as senior independent director. The senior independent director should be available to shareholders if they have concerns that contact through the normal channels of the chairman, chief executive officer or chief operations officer has failed to resolve or where such contact is inappropriate. Barry Eccleston is the senior independent director of the Board.
The Board consists of one Executive Director and eight Non-Executive Directors. The Company regards this as an appropriate board structure. Other than William A. Franke, Andrew S. Broderick and Stephen L. Johnson, the Company regards all of its Non-Executive Directors as independent Non-Executive Directors within the meaning of “independent” as defined in the Corporate Governance Code and free from any business or other relationship which could materially interfere with the exercise of their independent judgment. Accordingly, the Company complies with the requirement of the Corporate Governance Code that at least half of the board (excluding the chairman) of a company with a premium listing should comprise of independent non-executive directors.
Mr Franke has been Chairman of Wizz Air since 2004. The Chairman’s role is to lead the Board and ensure that it operates effectively. Mr Franke is the founder and managing partner of Indigo Partners LLC, a private equity fund focused on air transportation. He is currently chairman of Frontier Airlines, Inc, a United States airline, JetSMART SpA, a Chilean airline, EnerJet, a Canadian start-up airline, APiJET LLC, a software company focused on providing real-time cost saving analytics to airlines, and currently serves on the board of directors of Concesionaria Vuela Compania de Aviacion, S.A. de C.V., a Mexican airline that does business as Volaris. 1998 to 2001, Mr Franke was a managing partner of Newbridge Latin America, a private equity fund focused on Latin America. Mr Franke was the chairman and chief executive officer of America West Airlines from 1993 to 2001. He served as chairman of Spirit Airlines Inc., a United States airline, from 2006 to 2013 and Tiger Aviation Pte. Ltd, a Singapore-based airline, from 2004 to 2009, and held directorships in Alpargatas S.A.I.C., an Argentina-based footwear and textiles manufacturer, from 1996 to 2007, and Phelps Dodge Corporation, a mining company, where he served as the lead outside director for several years, from 1980 to 2007. He has in the past served on a number of publicly listed company boards of directors including ON Semiconductor, Valley National Corporation, Southwest Forest Industries and the Circle K Corporation.
Mr Franke has both undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University and an honorary PhD from Northern Arizona University. Mr Franke was the 2019 recipient of the Excellence in Leadership Award at the 45th ATW Airline Industry Achievement Awards.
A Danish national, Ms Andsager has held multiple regulatory roles within the Ministry of Transport and Communications of Norway as well as Telenor, the Norwegian majority state-owned multinational telecommunications company. In 2005, Ms Andsager served as Vice President, European & U.S. Public Affairs for SAS Group. In this capacity, Ms Andsager advised SAS Group on European & U.S. public affairs and maintained contacts with the European institutions and the U.S. Administration. In 2010, Ms Andsager joined Rolls-Royce Plc as Vice President EU Affairs where she served until 2014. Prior to joining the Wizz Air board, Ms Andsager served as an Independent Director on the board of Avinor Flysikring AS, the state-owned air navigation services provider in Norway. Ms Andsager holds a Masters' Degree in Law from Aarhus University.
Anna is a global technology and business leader with robust corporate governance experience built over years of board membership in international public and private companies. She currently serves as independent non-executive director at Intesa Sanpaolo Bank, Fiera Milano, and WiZink Bank in Spain.
As a seasoned digital sales and operations executive, she has demonstrated ability to translate strategic thinking into strong business growth, driving customer success at scale for companies such as Google, YouTube and Skype. She worked at launching YouTube in more than 22 countries and she built an entirely new advertising product business for Skype that laid the foundation for the company’s planned IPO and eventual sale to Microsoft.
Anna is also an active angel investor. In Silicon Valley, where Anna has been living for over twenty years, she co-founded two start-ups leveraging artificial intelligence applied to big data. Prior to her career in technology, Anna spent years in research and public policy, working at the World Health Organization and at the University of Berkeley, California, Goldman School of Public Policy.
She currently serves as Associated Professor of Practice of Digital Transformation at the Scuola di Direzione Aziendale (SDA) at Bocconi University, where she is also the Director of the research lab in life sciences and digital technology (LIFT Lab). She earned a Ph. D in Business Administration and a Ph. D in Criminology. She also completed a post-doctoral program in Organization Behaviour at Stanford University.
