Covestro Appoints New Head to Polyurethanes Segment

Covestro AG has announced managerial changes in its polyurethanes and coatings, adhesives, specialities segments effective 1, September 2017. 

Dr Markus Steilemann, who has been chief commercial officer (CCO) with board of management responsibility for innovation, marketing and sales since April 2017, will relinquish his position as head of the polyurethanes segment, which he has held since the start of 2016. Plans call for him to succeed Patrick Thomas as CEO of Covestro next year. 

The new head of the polyurethanes segment will be Daniel Meyer, who has headed the coatings, adhesives, specialities segment since 2011. He will be succeeded by Michael Friede, who currently manages the company’s global elastomers business from France. 

Dr Markus Steilemann can look back on a long international career that began at Bayer in 1999. In 2004, he moved to Bayer’s new MaterialScience subgroup, which now operates independently under the name Covestro. From 2008 onwards, Steilemann held various management positions in the polycarbonates segment in Asia, including serving as head of global industrial marketing. Between 2013 and 2015, he headed the entire polycarbonates segment before being appointed to the Covestro board of management. 

Daniel Meyer joined Bayer France SA in 1992. After transferring to Bayer AG in Leverkusen in 1997, he occupied various positions in the pigments business before becoming product manager for coating resins in 2002, initially in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and subsequently around the world. From 2004, Meyer held a number of different positions in Asia-Pacific for a total of eight years, including managing the marketing of coating raw materials. He went on to head business development before assuming responsibility for the entire coatings, adhesives, specialities segment in the region, and subsequently around the globe.

Michael Friede came to Bayer as a trainee. After working in the corporate audit department and as an assistant to the board of management, he spent a number of years in procurement, some of them in US. In 2012, he returned to Germany to manage the global key accounts team in the coatings, adhesives, specialities segment.