Frans van Houten became President, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Management and the Executive Committee of Royal Philips Electronics in 2011. In these capacities he is responsible for the following tasks: communications; HR; IT; internal auditing; legal/compliance/ GBP; marketing and strategy and business development. He started working at the firm in 1986 and in 1993 became Executive VP in Germany of International Sales and Operations at Philips Kommunikations Industrie. A few years later he also led the following regions: Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, in Singapore when he joined Philips’ Consumer Electronics division. He was also co-CEO of the Consumer Electronics division. He left the company but then came back as Philips’ COO.