Former commercial manager of Electrica joins CEZ

One more manager has joined the ranks of the top managers who switch from the state-owned energy companies to the companies operating in the private sector, the former commercial manager of Electrica, Ion Lungu.
After 30 years of experience in the state-owned energy companies, Ion Lungu, 56, decided to switch to the private field and became commercial manager of Electrica Oltenia, the largest distributor and supplier of electricity by number of clients, owned by the Czech energy group CEZ, on January 15.
The Czechs at CEZ took over Electrica Oltenia through a transaction worth 166.5 million euros two years ago.
“Since ’92 I had worked for Electrica and I went through all the professional levels, from engineer to general manager. I had some very good moments with this company, but I felt the need for a change. I made the firm decision to leave the state-owned sector and go into the private sector, because otherwise I would have risked having an area I didn’t know anything about,” says Lungu.
The work within a state-owned company, directly managed by the Ministry of Economy and Trade, along with the approval procedures and the inevitable bureaucracy that came with them, were some of the reasons why the key Electrica employee decided to leave.
“For instance, in September 2005, I came up with the idea of founding a trading company within Electrica, named Electrica Trade, that would have dealt with all the energy acquisitions, as well as with the activities made on the wholesale market for the company (i.e. transactions between producer and supplier, between supplier and trader etc, except for the sales to the final consumer). This could not have been done without feasibility research. In conclusion, it wasn’t done at all,” says Lungu.
But why did he choose CEZ, considering there are other companies that operate on the domestic market, such as Enel (Italy) and E.ON (Germany), which are much bigger groups than the Czech one?
“First of all, CEZ is a flexible company and it has a well-defined objective: to become the leader of the Central and East-European energy market. Secondly, there is a centralised trading activity in this region. There are local teams that analyse the market opportunities and communicate them to the group,” added the CEZ representative.