PHOTON International - The Photovoltaic Magazine

New owner of Dunasolar becomes board chairman

György Andrási, general director of Vilati Inc., a Hungarian manufacturer of industrial automation systems, has become board chairman at the Hungarian cell producer Dunasolar, following Vilati's purchase of the thin-film manufacturer in December.

György Andrási: New board chairman plans to increase Dunasolar's capacity.

»I think Dunasolar will be very successful, both within Hungary and outside the country,« says Andrási, who plans to increase the annual capacity from 3.2 MW to 5 MW in April. Andrási started at Vilati as a process control designer in 1972, but left in 1982 to work in Kuwait as the project manager for a company that constructed a 400 MW oil and gas power plant there. Rejoining Vilati in 1985, he served as head of the installation and commissioning division. After the fall of the Soviet Union, he was named general director of a Vilati subsidiary, Micronetics, which he merged with Vilati when he and the Wallis Group, a Hungarian conglomerate of manufacturing and trading companies, bought Vilati in 1998.

In other personnel changes, Zoltán Mándoki, formerly general director of the Hungarian Oil and Gas Company, has been appointed as Dunasolar's general director. Zsusanna Gombkoto has been brought in from the Wallis Group to serve as chief financial officer. wph