Bayer CropScience appoints Lykele van der Broek Chief Operating Officer

Bayer CropScience will establish a Chief Operating Officer (COO) function to further develop customer-based solutions in its regional crop protection and BioScience operations.

Effective November 1, 2010, Lykele van der Broek (56), currently Head of the Animal Health Division at Bayer Health Care, will take over the new COO function. This was decided by the Bayer CropScience Supervisory Board at its meeting yesterday. At the same time, the Bayer Subgroup will bring its strategy and business management functions together into the newly-named platform “Strategy & Business Management” to be headed by Dr. Rüdiger Scheitza (57), currently in charge of Portfolio Management. 
 
"The establishment of this Chief Operating Officer function enables us to drive forward the closer cooperation of our crop protection and seeds & traits operations on a regional level for the benefit of our customers”, says Bayer CropScience CEO designate Sandra E. Peterson. “This organizational setup will help us to sharpen our focus on providing innovative solutions for our world-wide customers and speed up the execution of our business strategy”, underscores Peterson, who will become Chairwoman of the Board of Management on October 1, 2010.
 
From November 1, the four existing crop protection regions North America, Latin America, Asia Pacific and Europe & Tamecis as well as the BioScience business unit will report to the newly-appointed Chief Operating Officer Lykele van der Broek. Van der Broek, who will report to Peterson in her future Chief Executive Officer role, will also be responsible for Marketing at Bayer CropScience.

At the same time, the company will bring its Strategic Planning and Mergers & Acquisitions functions together into one central unit, namely Strategy & Business Management, to be led by Dr. Rüdiger Scheitza, who is currently in charge of Portfolio Management. 
 
"With this organizational change, we group our key strategy functions and business execution in two powerful units which has global scope and far-reaching responsibility”, says CEO designate Sandra E. Peterson, adding: “This alignment forms the management basis for further developing Bayer CropScience going forward. It allows us to focus on pursuing our options to grow internally and externally e.g. through specific acquisitions, alliances, license agreements and partnerships.”
 
Lykele van der Broek has been a member of the Bayer HealthCare Executive Committee since October 1, 2006, where he has been responsible for the Animal Health Division. Van der Broek, born on July 30, 1954, is Dutch and graduated from the Agricultural University in Wageningen, Netherlands, with a Master of Science degree specializing in Phytopathology and Business Administration. He started his career at the Plant Protection Service of the Netherlands. From 1984 to 1991, he acted as Deputy Director and Director of the Netherlands Inspection Service for Arboriculture (NAKB). He then held different positions in seed and plant biotech companies. After joining the vegetable seed group Nunhems in 1999, he was responsible for the Asia Pacific region and strategy. In 2001, he became CEO and retained this position after Bayer’s acquisition of Aventis CropScience in 2002. In 2003, he was appointed Head of BioScience at Bayer CropScience.
 
Rüdiger Scheitza has been a member of the Board of Management of Bayer CropScience and Labor Director since July 1, 2004. He was born in Harting, near Regensburg, Germany, on March 17, 1953. Having finished his studies in agricultural science at the Technical University of Munich/Weihenstephan with a PhD in plant pathology, he joined Bayer AG in 1982, where he held a number of positions until he became Head of Marketing for crop protection in Western Europe in 1993. Following his appointment as Head of Global Registration, Dr. Scheitza took on responsibility for the crop protection business in Germany, Austria and Switzerland. In October 1998 he was given responsibility for global crop protection development and since June 2002 he has been in charge of portfolio management at Bayer CropScience.