2.10 Succession plans

During the Board’s previous term of office, the Appointments Committee examined the methodology used to identify successors in senior managerial positions and those considered to be extremely critical to the Group’s strategy (around 20 positions). These positions include all those that fall under the responsibility of the Appointments Committee (CEOs of Subsidiaries, Internal Auditor and Executive Responsible For Preparing Corporate Accounting Documents).

The process was based on a series of pragmatic steps that are rigorously implemented annually, involving the following phases:

• an analytical description of each position, particularly with reference to the areas of responsibility, guidelines for the evolution of the role in the near future, and the experience and managerial skills needed to best fulfil the position;
• an assessment of the current holder of each position and of potential candidates to succeed him/her, carried out also with the support of third leading companies in the sector;
• the preparation of a succession chart containing the names of potential successors and the resulting development guidelines; and
• an assessment of the overall risk associated with implementing successions.

The Appointments Committee examined the results of applying the methodology to the managerial positions under the Committee’s responsibility and the main outcomes, both at the general level and in terms of the position in question, and considered the structure of the succession plans implemented to be adequate both to guarantee organisational controls consistently with the strategies defined by the Company and to overcome any continuity issues.

In light of the Demerger and the global corporate reorganisation in the second half of 2016, the Appointments Committee has scheduled a review for the first half of 2017 of the methods and contents included in the succession plans for key managers to be submitted to the Board of Directors.

In view of the nature of its shareholder structure, Snam does not set out specific succession plans for its executive directors.