Measures to advance women on the Management Board, the Supervisory Board, and other leadership positions

In the business year 2011/12, the percentage of female executives was at 10.2%. Within the scope of internal leadership development efforts, great importance is being placed on accelerating the expansion of the percentage of female participants. Therefore, the relative resolution by the Management Board stipulates that women must be represented at each level of training. In the business year 2011/12, there were 16 women of a total of 121 participants (13.2%).

Overall, the percentage of women in the voestalpine Group in the business year 2011/12 was about 12.4%. This percentage is still low compared to other sectors of the economy, and this has industry-specific, historical, and cultural reasons. In the consciousness of the public, the image of a steel and processing company is still the image of heavy industry and, therefore, broad-based recruitment of female employees is a challenging undertaking.

None of the Group companies have explicit “female quotas.” Rather, the Group is striving to implement appropriate measures in order to sustainably increase the percentage of women at all levels. This includes a number of activities, some of which are country-specific, such as participation in Girl’s Day, specifically targeted advancement of women in technical professions, and fast-tracking the recruitment of female graduates of technical schools and universities. As a result of these efforts, women are now employed in top leadership positions in traditionally male-dominated, technical areas of the Company (e.g., hot-dip galvanizing plants, wire production facilities) and are in executive positions in financial and legal departments of a number of Group companies, both in Austria and abroad.

In periodic human resources reporting, data on the percentage of women in executive positions is collected and analyzed regularly according to their qualifications and their status in the training programs in order to monitor the sustainability of the implemented measures.

Linz, May 16, 2012

The Management Board