Bookmark 04-17-2014

Leadership Changes in Evonik's Business Units

With effect from June 1, 2014, Gregor Hetzke will head up Evonik’s Advanced Intermediates Business Unit. He succeeds Jan Van den Bergh, who had managed the business unit since 2009. Van den Bergh will now coordinate the India, Korea, Japan, Sub-Saharan Africa, and MENA regions.

Gregor Hetzke, who has a degree in engineering, joined the former Degussa AG in 1984 as a process engineer. After holding various management functions in and outside Germany, he managed the former Methacrylates Business Unit from 2003 before taking up his current position as head of the Performance Polymers Business Unit in Darmstadt in 2008.

Hetzke will be succeeded by Dr. Michael Pack who will become Head of Evonik Industries’ Performance Polymers Business Unit, effective June 1, 2014. Pack, whose doctorate is in agricultural science, began his professional career with Degussa AG in 1990. After holding a position with Finnfeeds Int. Ltd., a British company, he returned to Degussa in 1998. Six years later he became Head of Controlling & Business Development in what was then the Feed Additives Business Unit. In 2008, he became Head of the Methionine Business Line in Evonik’s Health & Nutrition Business Unit. Pack has been responsible for the operations of Evonik’s Baby Care Business Line since 2013.

Effective May 1, 2014, Norbert Westerholt will take over the management of the Business Line from Michael Pack. Westerholt, who joined the Group in 1997 as a lawyer, successfully led the Oil Additives Business Line for five years and has been in charge of a portfolio development project in the Coatings & Additives Unit since 2013. Westerholt will be charged with further expanding the promising business with superabsorbents at Evonik.