June 21, 2018: Battery giant Johnson Controls elected Jean Blackwell, the former CEO of Cummins Foundation, on to the board of directors on June 13.

The foundation is the charity wing of the power company Cummins. Blackwell was also executive vice president of corporate responsibility with the foundation.

She joined Cummins in 1997, where she worked in various senior positions, including that of chief financial officer.

Before that she was a partner with the law firm Bose McKinney & Evans.

Chairman and CEO of JCI George Oliver said Blackwell’s experience in global functions would enable her to provide strong leadership on the board of directors.

Blackwell is the third director to move on to the board in the last six months. She joins Simone Menne, former chief financial officer of Boehringer Ingelheim, and Gretchen Haggerty, former executive vice president and chief financial officer at United States Steel Corporation.

Meanwhile, Johnson Controls has still not announced what it intends to do with its Power Solutions segment, the battery-manufacturing part of the group’s business.

In March it confirmed it was “exploring strategic alternatives over the next few months”.