Lanxess announces new head of leather
30/07/2009
Specialist chemicals group Lanxess has announced that Markus Eckert will succeed Bernhard Wehling as head of its leather business unit on October 1.
Dr Eckert will assume global responsibility for all of the company's leather chemicals business, while Dr Wehling will begin what Lanxess has called "the passive phase of his senior part-time working plan".
Markus Eckert joined the Bayer Group in 1999 as a laboratory manager and project manager in the research and development section of the fine chemicals business unit. He was transferred to Shanghai, where he headed regional strategic planning at Bayer Polymers Asia Pacific. He was subsequently appointed assistant to the chairman of the Lanxess board, Dr Axel Heitmann and, as a member of the business design project team, worked intensively on the establishment of Lanxess as a specialty chemicals group. Since April 1, 2005, he has been head of corporate development for the group.
Dr Wehling began his career at Bayer in Leverkusen in 1976. Until 1980 he worked in the central scientific laboratory, where he was involved in the synthesis of optical brighteners and fluorescent dyestuffs. He then spent two years in the special dyeing department, where he was responsible for the colouring of plastics. After that, he worked for a year in chrome research, heading, among other things, the applications development department for chrome tanning materials.
In 1983 he moved to the marketing department of the former Bayer dyestuffs business group, latterly holding the post of head of wet operations. In 1992 he was appointed head of the dyestuffs and fibres division of Bayer South Africa in Johannesburg before moving, in 1995, to Milan to take over as managing director of DyStar Italia. He returned to Leverkusen on April 1, 2001 to head up the fine chemicals marketing department in the basic and fine chemicals business group. He has been head of what is now the Lanxess leather business unit since July 2002.
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