Lonza CEO Albert Baehny is looking forward to more free time
Published: Friday, Jan 26th 2024, 13:10
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Albert Baehny can look back on a long and successful career at Lonza and before that at Geberit. He made the sanitary group great and fundamentally restructured Lonza. In May, he will step down as Chairman of the Board of Directors - and is looking forward to more free time.
"At some point, I wanted to have more time for myself, for my family and my hobbies," said the 71-year-old in an interview with the news agency AWP on Friday. "At that age, that's allowed," he added with a laugh.
It is therefore a very personal decision and has nothing to do with Lonza, emphasized Baehny, who will remain with the company as Chairman until 8 May and perhaps a little longer as CEO.
Under Baehny's direction, Lonza was transformed from a chemical company into the world's leading supplier to the pharmaceutical, biotech and specialty chemicals markets. The sale of the chemicals division just over three years ago took place during his tenure.
"The separation from the chemicals division LSI was a good and the right decision," Baehny looks back. A "company focused entirely on CDMO was established."
It was not only in Switzerland that Lonza became known for the Moderna vaccine order during the coronavirus pandemic. "We managed to get Covid vaccine production up and running in just six months, which probably helped to save millions of lives," said the Lonza CEO.
Baehny now wears two hats at Lonza: That of Chairman of the Board of Directors and that of CEO ad interim. While the search for a new CEO will take a few more months, Baehny's successor on the Supervisory Board is already known: Dutchman Jean-Marc Huët will succeed him after the Annual General Meeting.
"I was not involved in the process, as it is not my job to choose my own successor," said Baehny. But he could say one thing for sure after contacting Huët: "He has the experience and skills to lead Lonza." He is fully behind the decision, he emphasized.
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