Werner Baumann was born in Krefeld, Germany, in 1962. He began working for Bayer in 1988, with his employment for the pharmaceutical giant starting in the finance department. He then transferred to Bayer’s business division in Spain before gradually working his way through the ranks to become Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and chief of strategy. It was in this latter role that he played a key part when Bayer acquired Schering in 2006.
He was announced as the next CEO of Bayer in February of 2016.
Baumann is married with four children and still lives in his home town of Krefeld.
Training
After schooling in Krefeld, Baumann attended RWTH Aachen University and the University of Cologne where he studied economics.
Career
After joining the company’s corporate finance department in Leverkusen in 1988, he moved to Bayer Hispania Commercial in Barcelona as a controller before being promoted to assistant to the managing director in 1995.
In 1996, he was transferred to the Bayer Corporation in New York where he eventually became head of the company’s global Business Planning & Administration organization of the Diagnostics Business Group.
He returned to Germany in 2002 to take up a place on the Executive Committee as well as a role as Head of Central Administration & Organization at Bayer HealthCare. One year later, the company appointed his as a member of the Board of Management of the new Bayer HealthCare AG subgroup. He also took on the role of Labour Director. He assumed those same two roles for Bayer Schering Pharma AG in Berlin from 2006 until September 2009, and played a big part in integrating that company into the former healthcare subgroup.
Baumann took up the post of CFO as of January 1st, 2010. From October of 2014 until taking over as Chairman of the Board of Management, he became Chief Strategy and Portfolio Officer and also held responsibility for the Europe, Middle East, and Africa region. In addition, he was Chairman of the Board of Management of Bayer HealthCare AG from April to December, 2015.
Anecdotes
"We never said we wanted to become a life science company, our portfolio is rather the result of a) what we are good at and b) what we regard as attractive markets in terms of long-term growth, profitability and barriers to market entry." Werner Baumann
