New Siemens I&S head prioritises skills shortage

After more than a decade spent at various Siemens operations in Europe, North and South America, Stuart Clarkson has returned to South Africa as the new divisional director for Siemens Industrial Solutions and Services (I&S).

With South Africa experiencing skills shortages in a number of areas, Clarkson says his main challenge is to ensure that the division has sufficient resources, skills and competence to be able to staff up for projects in a time of expansion and growth, especially in the build-up to 2010.

A graduate from Wits Technikon, Clarkson joined Siemens in 1981 as a trainee commissioning engineer, and spent the next 12 years in the commissioning department of I&S installing and commissioning standby power systems, UPS and diesel generators. This was followed by a move into the process automation, specialising in plants in the pulp and paper and chemical industries, and later into the mining sector as well. During this time, Clarkson gained invaluable experience in sales and marketing, as well as project management, which stood him in good stead when he was appointed to run the engineering division of I&S in 1996.

In late 1997, he was seconded to Germany, where he managed a service and commissioning group acting as a service provider to Siemens power generation and power transmission and distribution in the plant construction field spending time in Mexico and the USA. Four years later, he joined a business development group responsible for strategy definition and business development in the Americas. After three years, he assumed responsibility for his own portfolio, covering northern and eastern Europe, including Scandinavia, Russia and the Ukraine until his return to South Africa in May 2007.