G2 Board Independence

In 2022, the City of Reykjavík introduced a new arrangement for the election of OR's board of directors, where special attention is paid to choosing a certain percentage of independent representatives. This documented a practice that has been followed since 2010 regarding the selection of representatives on the OR board by the City of Reykjavík.

The board of Reykjavík Energy is made up of six people. Five, including the chairman and deputy chairman, are elected by the Reykjavík city council and one by the Akraness municipal council. The municipal council of Borgarbyggð appoints an observer member to the board and the association of employees of Reykjavik Energy Group another.

The chairman of the board of OR may not take on other duties for the company.

The board appoints the CEO of the company, drafts his job description and completes his retirement. The CEO handles all day-to-day operations of the company and manages holdings in OR's subsidiaries. The CEO of OR may not be on the board of OR and board members of OR may not sit on the board of a subsidiary company.

The division of duties between the CEO and the board is stipulated in the board's rules of procedure and the CEO's job description, but the CEO does not sit on board committees.

The CEO of OR does not sit on the boards of subsidiaries, but in them three representatives must be employees of OR, of which at least one of OR's management team. All boards of OR's subsidiaries are made up of five members, three from the OR group's staff and two external experts in the relevant company's field of work.

Here it is understood that people who sit on the local councils of the owner municipalities are not independent, and the same applies to the group's staff who sit on the boards of subsidiaries.

Board members independent of the company or its owners

Stjórn Orkuveitunnar í janúar 2023

OR's Board of directors in january 2023, from left: Skúli Helgason, Valgarður Lyngdal Jónsson, Þórður Gunnarsson, Ragnhildur Alda Vilhjálmsdóttir, Gylfi Magnússon, Vala Valtýsdóttir, Guðveig Lind Eyglóardóttir.

In January 2023, these sat on Reykjavík Energy's Board of Directors:

  • Dr. Gylfi Magnússon, chairman, professor of economics and finances at the University of Iceland.
  • Vala Valtýsdóttir, vice-chair and chair of compensation committee, lawyer and specialist in corporate law.
  • Ragnhildur Alda Vilhjálmsdóttir, city councillor from Reykjavík, BS in psychology and a masters degree in service management.
  • Skúli Helgason, city councillor from Reykjavík and political scientist.
  • Valgarður Lyngdal Jónsson, municipal councillor from Akranes and secondary school teacher.
  • Þórður Gunnarsson, resource economist.

Borgarbyggð Municipality and OR’s Employee Organisation have observers at board meetings. These are:

  • Guðveig Lind Eyglóardóttir, municipal councillor from Borgarbyggð.
  • Unnur Líndal Karlsdóttir, chairwoman of OR's Empoyee Organisation.

The Board of Directors of Reykjavik Energy Group places emphasis on transparency. The minutes from Board meetings and meeting documents, which are not confidential, can be accessed by the public on the Group's website. The minutes from Board meetings contain, among other things, a record of all the decisions made by the Board, and Board members have the right to have their positions on specific issues briefly noted in the minutes.