Kley New VCI President

Dr. Karl-Ludwig Kley, the Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, has been elected President of the German Chemical Industry Association (Verband der Chemischen Industrie e.V. – VCI) by the association’s member assembly, which met in Essen, Germany, today.

The association’s member assembly also agreed on the Vice Presidents:

Dr. Klaus Engel, Evonik Industries AG, Essen (former President)
Dr. Kurt Bock, BASF SE, Ludwigshafen, und
Dr. Marijn Dekkers, Bayer AG, Leverkusen

and the members of the VCI executive committee:

Prof. Dr. Dr. Andreas Barner, Boehringer Ingelheim GmbH, Ingelheim
Dipl.-Wirt.-Ing. Paul-Hermann Bauder, Paul Bauder GmbH & Co.KG, Stuttgart
Ralf Brinkmann, Dow Deutschland Inc., Eschborn
Dr. Axel Claus Heitmann, LANXESS AG, Leverkusen
Dipl.-Ing. Sabine Herold, DELO Industrie Klebstoffe GmbH & Co KG, Windach
Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Reitzle, Linde AG, München
Kasper Rorsted, Henkel AG & Co. KGaA, Düsseldorf
Prof. Dr. Rudolf Staudigl, Wacker Chemie AG, München

Karl-Ludwig Kley, born 1951 in Munich, studied law at Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, Germany, from 1974 to 1979. He completed his practical training as a lawyer in Hamburg, Germany, and Johannesburg, South Africa, and earned a doctorate in law (Dr. jur.) from the University of Munich in 1986 while working.
Kley joined Bayer AG, Leverkusen, Germany, in 1982. After working in Corporate Finance and became the assistant to the Chairman of the Management Board. He served as Chief Financial Officer in Japan, held a number of senior executive positions within sales and marketing of the Pharmaceutical division, served as Head of the Pharmaceutical division at the Italian subsidiary of Bayer until 1997, and was in charge of Corporate Finance and Investor Relations at Bayer headquarters.
In 1998, Kley became a Member of the Executive Board and Chief Financial Officer of Lufthansa AG and in September 2006, he joined Merck KGaA as Vice Chairman of the Executive Board. He was appointed Chairman of the Executive Board in late April 2007.

Kley is, inter alia, Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of BMW AG, Munich, and a Member of the Supervisory Board of Bertelsmann AG, Gütersloh, Germany.