New VCI President

Hans Van Bylen, CEO of Henkel, Düsseldorf, Germany, has been elected President of the German Association of Chemical Industry (VCI; Verband der Chemischen Industrie) from 2018 to 2020. He succeeds Dr. Kurt Bock, BASF, Ludwigshafen, Germany. Kurt Bock has retired on May 4, 2018, as Chairman of the Executive Board of BASF.

Werner Baumann, CEO of Bayer, Germany, and Dr. Martin Brudermüller, BASF, Germany, were elected as Vice Presidents of the VCI at their general meeting in Ludwigshafen, Germany.

Hans Van Bylen, born 1961 in Berchem, Antwerp, Belgium, studied business economics at the University of Antwerp and graduated with both a degree in business management and a Master of Business Administration. He joined Henkel in 1984 as Product Manager for detergents in Belgium. After several positions, Hans Van Bylen became a member of Henkel’s management board in 2005 and served as Executive Vice President for the Beauty Care business. In May 2016 he was appointed Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Henkel.

Werner Baumann, born 1962 in Krefeld, Germany, studied economics at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule (RWTH), Aachen, Germany, and at the University of Cologne, Germany. He joined Bayer in 1988, and held positions in Leverkusen, Germany, Barcelona, Spain, and Tarrytown, New York, before returning to Germany in 2002. In 2003, he was appointed as a member of the Board of Management of the subgroup Bayer HealthCare AG, also serving as the company’s Labor Director. Baumann has been a member of the Board of Management of Bayer since 2010.

Martin Brudermüller, born in Stuttgart in 1961, studied Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe, Germany, and received his degree there in 1985. After earning his Ph.D. from the same university in 1987, he did a postdoc at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. He joined BASF in 1988 and held several positions before he became a member of the BASF Executive Board in 2008. Since 2011, he has been Deputy Chairman of the Executive Board of BASF.