Wernicke Appointed as New Biocatalysts Chairman

Dr Wernicke has been a board member at Biocatalysts for 13 years and has always had a huge interest in and been a great ambassador for the company. In early 2011, Swiss company Clariant bought Süd-Chemie and this change resulted in Dr Wernicke stepping down from the Managing Board.

Nov 23 2011 --- Biotechnology company Biocatalysts Ltd has announced the appointment of Dr Hans Wernicke, the former management board Vice-Chairman of the billion euro German chemical company Süd-Chemie, as Chairman of its Board of Directors.

Dr Wernicke embarked on his relationship with Biocatalysts through his role at Süd-Chemie AG (Süd-Chemie AG is a minority shareholder of Biocatalysts). He started his career at Süd-Chemie AG in 1985 in the area of chemical and petrochemical catalysts. After several global management positions Dr Wernicke became a Member of the Managing Board of Süd-Chemie at the end of 1996 and in 2007 he became Vice Chairman of the Managing Board. His combination of vision and practical strategy implementation and several years of overseas assignments have brought considerable growth to Süd-Chemie over the years.

Dr Wernicke has been a board member at Biocatalysts for 13 years and has always had a huge interest in and been a great ambassador for the company.  In early 2011, Swiss company Clariant bought Süd-Chemie and this change resulted in Dr Wernicke stepping down from the Managing Board.

Dr Wernicke is renowned for his knowledge of the global chemical and catalyst markets and he will be able to use his wealth of experience with Biocatalysts. As Chairman he will be able to help Biocatalysts develop their globalisation strategy and add value to the business through achieving the challenging growth targets planned for the next three years.

Biocatalysts Managing Director Stuart West said of the appointment, ‘Biocatalysts has grown by almost 50% in the past 2 years and part of that growth was achieved by setting up our own subsidiary company in the USA, Dr Wernicke’s huge global knowledge will help the company to continue at this high growth rate by developing new markets in other parts of the world’.