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Kemal Malik will succeed Prof. Wolfgang Plischke of the Bayer board of management from February 1. Born in England fifty-one years ago, Malik has headed the group for developing new pharmaceuticals within Health Care as well as leading Global Development and being appointed Chief Medical Officer. Malik’s board membership will become effective from April 30 when Plitschke retires.

Bernd Pischetsrieder, Joe Kaeser and Bernd Bohr will stand for election to the Supervisory Board of Daimler at the company’s General Meeting scheduled for April 9. They are replacing Gerard Kleisterlee, Lloyd Trotter and Bernhard Walter who are leaving for age reasons, no extension having been built into their contracts. The new appointments were decided during the auto manufacturer’s Supervisory Board meeting on December 11, 2013, and the decision to nominate the former chair of the Board of Directors of BMW and Volkswagen, the head of Siemens, and the former manager of Bosch, highlights the Supervisory Board’s intention to improve its competency in the automotive industry. In the past, shareholders had more than once expressed their dissatisfaction that Manfred Bischoff was the only Supervisory Board member from the capital side with automotive experience, an issue that Daimler had always declined to take a stance on. One investment fund manager called for “improved automotive competency” instead of “cosmetically increasing the gender quota” when Andrea Jung was appointed during the 2013 general meeting. In addition to Jung, four of the Supervisory Board’s total membership of twenty are women: Sari Baldauf, Petra Heynike, Sabine Maaßen and Elke Tönjes-Werner.

Günter Baachmann retired at the end of 2013. The 61-year-old member of the Board of Directors had been head of technology and production at DMG MORI SEIKI since 2006. His area of responsibility will be merged with that of Board member Christian Thönes who joined the Board of Directors of former GILDEMEISTER in 2012.  The new board has thus been cut back to five members.

Adrian von Hammerstein has decided to quit the company, with effect from 31 March 2014. Under his leadership which began in May 2007,  Kabel Deutschland Holding grew to become Germany’s biggest supplier of cable television. As of April 1, his position will be filled  by 50-year old Manuel Cubero, presently Chief Operating Officer and Vice chair of the Board of Management. Kabel Deutschland recently signed a contract with Vodafone on subordination and revenue transfer.

From April onwards, LEONI will be run by four managers instead of three as at present. In a note of December 11 last, the supplier to the automotive industry announced that that Frank Hiller would be joining the Board of Directors with responsibility from July 1for Wire & Cable Solutions. Klaus Probst who had acted as interim head of cable activities will return to his role of company CEO.

In a communiqué dated December 18 , 2013,  Nemetschek announced that Patrick Heider has been appointed Chief Financial & Operations Officer and spokesperson for the Board of Directors. Heider, whose appointment becomes effective on March 1, will make up the new board together with Sean Flaherty and Viktor Varkonyu. As of March 31, Tobias Wagner will no longer be caretaker manager.

The tribunal of first instance of Schweinfurt has ruled in favour of the application put forward by the Rhön Klinikum Board of Directors by appointing  Katrin Vernau and Reinhard Hartl to the vacant slots as shareholders’ representatives on the Supervisory Board until the next general meeting. Vernau is a partner of the Roland Berger consultancy studio and is onetime Chancellor of Hamburg University. Hartl, a native of  Wolfratshausen is an auditor.

As part of the “Salzgitter AG 2015” initiative, the joint stock company has cut the component number of its Board of Directors from five to three as from January 1. The seats occupied by Wolfgang Eging and Heinz Groschke who resigned on September 30 for age reasons, have remained vacant. The Board is now comprised of Chairman Heinz Jörg Fuhrmann, CFO Burkhard Becker and head of human resources and works manager Michael Kleckbusch.

WMF: new brooms

Bernd Flohr has retired from the board of directors of General Standard-listed consumer goods manufacturer WMF AG as of the end of 2013. An employee since 1983, Flohr joined the board in 2000 as head of finance, human resources, accounts, control, IT and group purchasing. He will leave the company on September 30, 2014 when his contract expires.

He will be replaced on the board from January by Bernd Stoeppel, an American with an excellent command of German, Stoeppel will head finance, controlling, internal auditing and IT. He was head of finance of the Starwood hotel chain for Europe, Africa and the Near East. Beforehand, he had also worked for Electrolux household appliances, Messer Griesheim and Reebok. Financial investor and WMF majority shareholder KKR is expecting Stoeppel to accelerate WMF’s internationalisation programme. Furthermore, it was on KKR’s initiative after it acquired its stake in the company that Peter Feld was summoned in 2012 to be chairman of the board of directors.

Leifheit: the new boss is moving in earlier

The new chairman of  the board of directors of Leifheit AG from January, will be Thomas Radtke. Change at the top in the household goods manufacturer had been in the air for some months but no date was known. Now Radtke is taking over from Claus-Otto Zacharias who had led the company on an interim basis, and is now returning to his post of CEO. Latterly, Radtke had been on the board of directors of Herlitz AG, which he managed to quit at year’s end,  earlier than planned.

KWS Saat: advance notice of change of the guard.

Long-term planning at SDAZ-listed seed producer KWS Saat AG: Hagen Duesbostel has been appointed spokesperson for the board of directors with effect from January 1, 2015. Duesbostel has been a board member since 2003, and he will take over from Philip von dem Bussche who is resigning from the board of directors at the end of 2014 for age reasons. Peter Hofmann will join the board as a new member on October 1, 2014.