Former Tyumen Oil Company (TNK) president Simon Kukes has been elected chairman of the Yukos board of directors. A Yukos shareholders meeting elected Kukes to the board. Kukes has therefore resigned as TNK’s president. Prior to February 1998, when Kukes became president of TNK, he was the Yukos first vice-president for marketing. He worked in western oil companies for about 12 years with Amoco and Phillips Petroleum.