Bayer AG announced that Bill Anderson will be its next CEO, succeeding Werner Baumann in the role on June 1.
The company said Baumann, who has been with the healthcare giant for more than 30 years, will work closely with Anderson during the transition period. Baumann has had some rocky times over the past year, notably surviving a non-binding shareholder vote in late April 2022 after some investors expressed concerns about Bayer’s compensation package for top executives.
Baumann’s tenure at the helm of Bayer, which began in 2016, is perhaps best known for the company’s $63 billion takeover of Monsanto, the agribusiness giant, which closed in June 2018.
Prior to his time as CEO, Baumann was Bayer’s CFO for four years and then chief strategy and portfolio officer for nearly two years.
Anderson is an outsider to Bayer, having worked at Roche for 25 years. Anderson spent the last four years as head of the company’s pharmaceutical division before he stepped down from the role in December. The company said he was leaving to “pursue opportunities outside of Roche.”
In addition to his experience at Roche, Anderson served as CEO of Genentech and spent some time in various leadership roles at Biogen. Throughout the course of his career, Anderson has been involved in the development and launch of 25 new medicines.
“Bayer is an innovative company that is already delivering tremendous benefits for the nutrition, health and environmental protection of the world. Its leading R&D investments in agriculture, medicines and consumer health hold the promise for additional breakthroughs,” Anderson said in a statement. “I look forward to working with the people of Bayer to accelerate innovation, increase performance, advance sustainability and unleash the full potential of the company.”
Professor Dr. Norbert Winkeljohann, chairman of the supervisory board of Bayer AG, said Anderson is the ideal candidate to lead the company into a “new, successful chapter at a time of a disruptive innovation cycle in biology, chemistry and artificial intelligence.”
This is the latest, most significant personnel move coming out of Bayer.
At the end of January, the company named Ben Kampelman as VP of communications for Crop Science.
