23 Nov 2009 17:09

RusHydro board confirms Yevgeny Dod as new CEO

MOSCOW. Nov 23 (Interfax) - The board of directors at hydrogenerating company RusHydro has confirmed Yevgeny Dod, the chief executive of electricity trader Inter RAO UES , as its own new chief executive, a source with knowledge of the board decision told Interfax.

The source said the former acting chief of RusHydro, Vasily Zubakin, would quit the company. "Zubakin will leave. As far as I know, he doesn't have anywhere to go yet," the source said.

The board of directors said that the appointment was not an assessment of Zubakin's performance as CEO, said another source, who was present at the meeting.

Zubakin stays on as a member of the executive board, this source said.

Three other Inter RAO executives will join Dod at RusHydro. The Russian Energy Ministry's press office said in a statement that the RusHydro board of directors approved changes to the executive board on Monday, and that Mikhail Mantrov, head of Inter RAO's Corporate Center; Yury Sharov, head of Eastern Energy Company; and George Rizhinashvili, head of the Strategy and Investment Unit, were appointed to the RusHydro executive board.

Zubakin was made acting CEO in the summer of last year when the incumbent, Vyacheslav Sinyugin, was appointed deputy Russian energy minister.

It is expected that Boris Kovalchuk, deputy general director of the state Rosatom corporation, will take over from Dod at Inter RAO. It is for the shareholders in Inter RAO to decide on this, and the company's board will convoke an EGM soon.

Zubakin had been expected to leave RusHydro ever since the disaster at the Sayano-Shushenskaya hydroelectric dam on August 17, which killed 75 and damaged or destroyed nine of the plants ten turbines.

RusHydro runs most of Russia's hydroplants and is state-owned.

Dod, 38, was deputy head of exports at RAO UES of Russia from, 1999 and has been in charge of Inter RAO almost since the company was set up, in June 2000.

Inter RAO imports and exports electricity and owns and controls power-sector assets in Russia and abroad. The state Rosatom corporation runs Inter RAO.

Boris Kovalchuk is the son of Yury Kovalchuk, a shareholder of the Rossiya bank and at one time headed the Russian government's department for priority national projects. He was made deputy chief of Rosatom and became an Inter RAO board member in 2009.