By Liz White, UT editor
Leverkusen, Germany-Patrick Thomas took up his new position of chairman of the board of management of Bayer MaterialScience AG on 1 Jan 2007.
"I am here to make a really good business even better," commented the new ceo on taking up office, in a BMS statement.
Thomas succeeds Dr Hagen Noerenberg, whose employment with Bayer ended at the end of 2006, as planned.
Thomas graduated from Oxford University with an engineering degree in 1979 and began a career with British chemicals company Imperial Chemical Industries.
He held a variety of senior posts in its pharmaceutical and agricultural chemical businesses before moving to its polyurethanes business in Everberg, Belgium, in 1989.
He was appointed head of that business in 1997. Huntsman Corp. took over that business just a couple of years later.
With Huntsman, Thomas was given a wider role, initially as president of its polyurethanes, performance chemicals and advanced materials divisions, before becoming corporate executive vice president of Huntsman MaitlinPatterson in 2003, with responsibilities across the Salt Lake City, Utah-based enterprise.
He left Huntsman in 2005 and had consultancy roles in the private equity world until joining Bayer on 15 Aug 2006.
PIC: Thomas (centre) gets to grips with the Bayer culture, during the change-over period, accompanied by Hagen Noerenberg (left) and Bayer Group chairman Werner Wenning (right). "
