Merck appoints Marcus Kuhnert as Group CFO

Marcus Kuhnert

The Board of Partners of E Merck has appointed Marcus Kuhnert as Group Chief Financial Officer of pharmaceuticals and chemicals company Merck. Kuhnert will become a member of Merck’s Executive Board with unlimited personal liability as of August 1, 2014. Kuhnert has been CFO of Henkel’s Laundry & Home Care business unit since 2010.

“With the appointment of Kuhnert, we are completing Merck’s top management team with an internationally experienced finance manager. He will continue the realignment of our finance organisation, which we started three years ago, and keep up the successful communication with the capital markets,” said Johannes Baillou, Chairman of the Board of Partners of E Merck, the body that appoints the Executive Board members of Merck.

Kuhnert following his studies at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany, where he earned a combined master’s degree in business administration and mechanical engineering and a Ph.D. at the Institute for Finance and Controlling, he started his career as Corporate Controller at Henkel in 1999, moved to Investor Relations and as of 2003 headed Group Financial Statements & Subsidiary Controlling. As of 2007, Kuhnert worked in Singapore as Regional General Manager for Henkel-Adhesive in South East Asia and played a key role in integrating the largest acquisition in Henkel’s history. In 2008 he took charge of the CEO Office and Strategy Development as well as Corporate Communications ad interim as of 2009.

At Merck, Kuhnert will succeed Matthias Zachert, who assumed the role of Chief Executive Officer of Lanxess on April 1.

EP News Bureau – Mumbai