Global steel and mining company ArcelorMittal has announced that Stephanie Werner-Dietz will join the company on September 1, 2022 as executive vice president and global head of human resources (HR).

Bart Wille, who currently holds this position, has decided to retire at the end of this year following a career of 37 years in HR management.

Stephanie joins ArcelorMittal from Nokia, where she is chief people officer and a member of the group leadership team. In this position she has responsibility for all people-related topics including human resource management, real estate and health and safety. 

“Stephanie will report to Aditya Mittal, chief executive officer of ArcelorMittal, and will also work closely on human resources issues with Lakshmi N Mittal in his role of executive chairman,” the company said in a statement.

She will be based in the company’s head office in Luxembourg.

“First of all, I must thank Bart who has made a significant contribution to ArcelorMittal’s people agenda since joining the company five years ago. He has introduced several important initiatives to strengthen our talent base and build a high performing organisation where everyone can thrive and perform. With Stephanie we will have another highly experienced human resources executive, who will ensure that ArcelorMittal further refines and develops its people strategy, so that we can continue to attract and develop the brightest talent in all our operations around the world,” said Lakshmi N Mittal.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Bart for his strong leadership of the HR function in the past five years. He is a much-valued colleague and member of the ArcelorMittal family. I’m very much looking forward to welcoming Stephanie to ArcelorMittal and working closely with her on our people agenda,” added Aditya Mittal.

“Having spent 25 years in the technology sector with Nokia, I am happy to embark on a new learning journey and a new challenge with ArcelorMittal. I am already fascinated by the steel industry which is far more technologically sophisticated than I had imagined. There are several major trends which we need to integrate into our people strategy in the coming decade - decarbonisation is the obvious one, but also digitalisation, artificial intelligence, the evolution of the workplace, and the further steps to embrace diversity and inclusion into the culture of the organisation,” said Stephanie on her appointment.

A German native, Stephanie holds a diploma in applied business languages (Chinese) and international business studies from the University of Applied Sciences of Bremen, in Germany.