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BAYER CROPSCIENCE NAMES NEW CHAIRMAN
Source: Bayer CropScience news release

• Current Chairman Prof. Friedrich Berschauer to retire
• Achim Noack appointed to the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience
• Dr. Dirk Van Meirvenne to be Managing Director of Bayer Technology Services

Sandra E. Peterson, 51, is to be the new Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience AG. This was decided by the Supervisory Board of the Bayer subgroup at its meeting on Tuesday.

Peterson, a U.S. citizen, will join the subgroup's Board of Management on July 1, 2010 and succeed Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Friedrich Berschauer as Chairman effective October 1, 2010.

Said Werner Wenning, Chairman of the Bayer AG Board of Management: "Sandra Peterson has been a successful division head in the Bayer Group for the past five years, having already demonstrated her leadership qualities in various sectors of industry. We are therefore convinced that she has the right profile to successfully lead the CropScience business."

Peterson's successor as a member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee and Head of the Medical Care Division will be 46-year-old Alan Main, a British citizen, who is currently Head of the Europe Region in Bayer HealthCare's Consumer Care Division.

Wenning praised the achievements of Berschauer, who will be 60 in June and is taking retirement after 30 years of valuable service to Bayer: "Professor Berschauer has further strengthened the position of Bayer CropScience as an innovation leader in conventional crop protection and driven the expansion of our seed and biotechnology businesses. We thank him for his great commitment and wish him well for the future."

In addition, the Supervisory Board of Bayer CropScience appointed Achim Noack, 50, to the company's Board of Management effective June 1, 2010. As of October 1, 2010, Noack will assume responsibility for Industrial Operations & QHSE (Quality, Health, Safety and Environment) in succession to Dr. Wolfgang Welter, 62, who will retire on September 30, 2010, after many years of valuable service.

Effective June 1, 2010, Noack will be succeeded as Managing Director of Bayer Technology Services GmbH by Dr. Dirk Van Meirvenne, 46, currently Head of Production and Technology Isocyanates at Bayer MaterialScience AG.

Sandra E. Peterson has been a member of the Executive Committee of Bayer HealthCare since May 2005, heading up the Medical Care Division since January 2009. Prior to that she was in charge of the Diabetes Care Division, now one of the businesses of Medical Care.

Peterson, born in 1959 in New York, NY, holds a B.A. in Government from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, and a Master of Public Administration in Applied Economics from the University of Princeton, New Jersey. She received a fellowship from the Robert Bosch Foundation in Stuttgart, Germany, and spent a year in 1984-85 serving with the German Federal Ministry of Finance and the Federation of German Industries.

From 1987-1993, Peterson was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company, working on brand marketing strategies, innovative product development and new business. Between 1993 and 1996 she held various global executive positions with home appliances manufacturer Whirlpool Corporation, subsequently being appointed Executive Vice President at foods company Nabisco. In 1999, Peterson became Senior Vice President of Merck-Medco's Health Businesses, where she launched several new business lines. Her areas of responsibility at Medco included business development, strategy, cooperation management, product development, branding and marketing. As an Executive Management team member, she played a role in the strategic spin-off of Medco Health from Merck & Co., Inc., later serving as Group President of Medco Health Solutions, Inc.

Peterson is a member of the Board of Directors of Dunn & Bradstreet. In addition, she is a member and former Chairman of the Board of Wildlife Trust, an international non-profit scientific organization; a member of the Committee of 200, an international organization for women in management positions; and a member of the Women's Forum.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. Friedrich Berschauer has been Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience AG since April 1, 2004. Born in 1950, in Boms, near Ravensburg, Germany, Berschauer studied agricultural science at the Hohenheim University in Stuttgart, subsequently working as a scientific assistant at the university's Institute for Animal Nutrition.

Having gained a Ph.D. in Agricultural Science in 1977, he joined Bayer AG in 1980 as Head of the Animal Nutrition Department at the Pharmaceuticals Research Center in Wuppertal. He held various positions with Bayer before being appointed Head of Development in the company's Crop Protection Business Group in 1993. In 1998 he transferred to the U.S. to become President of the Animal Health Division of Bayer Corporation. In July 2000, he was appointed General Manager of the Animal Health Business Group of Bayer AG. After the reorganization, Berschauer was initially appointed a member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee with responsibility for the Animal Health Division and the Asia-Pacific region. From October 1, 2003, he was a member of the Board of Management of Bayer HealthCare AG and the company's labor director, before taking up his current position as Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience AG.

Since July 2008, Friedrich Berschauer has been Chairman of the Board of Directors of CropLife International.

Achim Noack was born in Hamburg on July 17, 1959. After studying chemical engineering at the University of Dortmund, he joined Bayer AG in 1986, as a process engineer with the former Crop Protection Business Group. After five years he transferred to Engineering in the Central Technology Division, moving after two years to Kansas City, MO, U.S.A., to serve as Project Manager for the Crop Protection Business Group.

Noack returned to Germany in 1997 as Plant Manager for the Organic Chemicals Business Group in Krefeld-Uerdingen. Two years later he was placed in charge of engineering support for agrochemical active ingredients in Germany. In 2000, he was named Head of the Corporate Engineering Department and, shortly thereafter, Chief Technology Officer of Bayer Corporation, U.S.A., in Pittsburgh, PA. After the establishment of Bayer Technology Services (BTS) in 2002, he headed the Bayer Technology Services Americas office. Noack was appointed the company's Managing Director in mid-2005. In this function Noack pursued a systematic growth strategy, continuing the development of the former Central Technology Division into a flexible, customer-focused service provider.

Dr. Dirk Van Meirvenne was born on September 19, 1963, in Sint-Niklaas, Belgium, and studied polymer chemistry at the University of Ghent, Belgium. In 1990, he joined Bayer Antwerpen N.V., Belgium, where he worked in titanium dioxide production until 1997, latterly as plant manager. He subsequently transferred to the plastics unit where he was responsible for polycarbonate production in Antwerp until 2001. Van Meirvenne subsequently served as site manager in Map Ta Phut, Thailand, which at that time was being expanded to become Bayer's largest production center for polycarbonates in Asia.

Just over a year later he was appointed Head of Global Operations, Polycarbonates at Bayer Polymers in Krefeld-Uerdingen. When Bayer MaterialScience was formed in 2004, he was appointed Global Head of Production and Technology in the Polycarbonates business unit. Since 2007, Van Meirvenne has served as Global Head of Production and Technology, Isocyanates, at Bayer MaterialScience in Leverkusen. In this capacity he was responsible for the construction of the MDI and TDI facilities in Caojing near Shanghai, China.

Alan Main has been Head of the Region Europe in Bayer HealthCare's Consumer Care Division, headquartered in Basel, Switzerland, since February 1, 2008. This Region comprises the western and eastern European countries, the Middle East and Africa. Before that, he was Head of the Region Asia/Pacific in the Consumer Care Division, where he was responsible for Commercial Operations and the development of important growth markets in the Far East. Main is currently a board member and Vice President of the AESGP (European Self-Care Industry Association.)

Born in 1963, in Aberdeen, Scotland, Main obtained a B.A. in International Marketing from Thames Polytechnic. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Marketers in the United Kingdom.

Main has more than 25 years of experience in the OTC industry, in which he has held various positions in marketing and management. Before entering the consumer care business he worked for Stafford-Miller (now GSK) and Merrel-Dow (now Sanofi-Aventis). In 1992 Main began his marketing career with Roche Consumer Health in the United Kingdom, where he held various positions of increasing responsibility in the U.K. and abroad, including South Africa and Hong Kong. He joined Bayer in January 2005, following the successful acquisition of the Roche Consumer Health business. Before the acquisition, Main was Head of the Region International, comprising Asia/Pacific, Russia, Turkey, the Middle East and Africa. He was a member of the Leadership Team at Roche Consumer Health.

Dr. Wolfgang Welter, born in Oberbexbach, Germany, on January 28, 1948, studied chemistry in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern. In 1977, he joined Hoechst AG, where in the period through 1994 he held a number of positions and undertook various international production assignments for the Crop Protection and Fine Chemicals business groups, including the position of site manager in Griesheim. From 1994 to 1999 he was in charge of global active ingredients production at AgrEvo in Frankfurt. Thereafter he was appointed Head of Manufacturing at Aventis CropScience in Lyon, France, and was a member of the Executive Committee. In June 2002, Welter became Head of Industrial Operations at Bayer CropScience in Monheim, Germany. He was appointed to the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience AG effective July 1, 2004. His work centered on successful site consolidation and the optimization of production costs.


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