Basel Metropolitan Area
At Arxada (a Private Equity owned industrial spin-off of Lonza), I am part of the Executive Leadership Team and lead our Business Unit Nutrition, Care and Environmental which offers a broad range of solutions to our customers through our capabilities in precision fermentation, contract development and manufacturing and leveraging the vertical integration of our Verbund site in Visp, Switzerland. Through these unique capabilities, we are able to optimally service our customers in the areas of agriculture, animal feed, battery materials, composite materials, nutrition and pharma. In this role I am responsible for the full P&L including sales, operations, R&D, purchasing, supply chain and HR. In addition, I have the pleasure of representing the Swiss Chemical and Pharmaceutical sector together with my colleague Board members at ScienceIndustries where I am also active as chairman of the working group on Environment, Safety and Technology.
Leadership of the BU Nutrition, Care and Environmental encompassing 3 major production sites and ~1200 employees globally and providing solutions in the areas of Contract Development and Manufacturing, Vitamins, Composite Materials and Performance Intermediates.
* responsible for Sibelco’s sales and operations in North America, South America and APAC (11 countries, 18 plants, 1500 employees, 320M EUR of revenues) * put in place the new regional structure * total turnaround for the major asset to significantly and sustainably improve performance * set up a team to drive growth through M&A in Asia.
* member of the Executive Committee * responsible for one of Sibelco’s two Business Groups including 5 business lines (Tiles, Engobes & Engineered Stone; Sanitaryware & Structural Ceramics; Optimized Materials; Steel & Refractory; Electronics, Fiber and Specialty Glass) * navigated the business group through the turmoil of the Covid crisis in 2020 enabling us to grow relative market share in an adverse economic climate while controlling our cost base and improving our Net Promotor Score from 18 to 25. * functionally responsible for Commercial Excellence.
* led the Corporate Development team of Sibelco reporting into the CEO and covering strategy, M&A and the Project Management Office * project managed the merger of Sibelco’s NAM business with Fairmount Santrol to create the NYSE listed Covia (the leading North American silica and frac sand supplier) * led the divestiture of Sibelco’s Lime and Magnesia businesses * set up a systematic process to revitalize Sibelco’s M&A pipeline * involved in >15 M&A files.
Throughout my consulting career I focused especially on industrial sectors (construction, mining, chemicals) and this across EMEA (Belgium, Germany, Netherlands, France, UK, Swiss, Morocco) working on topics ranging from strategy across cost optimization / restructuring to merger management. I was recognized as one of McKinsey’s European merger management experts and part of the core client development team.