Bayer’s  supervisory board has elected Werner Wenning as its chairman, who had already been elected by the Annual Stockholders' Meeting of Bayer in April 27, 2012, to become a member of the supervisory board effective October 1.

Wenning served as chairman of the board of management of Bayer from April 2002 until September 2010. The statutory “cooling-off period,” after which a former member of a company’s board of management may join its supervisory board, ends after two years.

Wenning's career with Bayer spanned nearly 45 years, during which he rose from trainee to CEO. Wenning joined the company in 1966 as a commercial trainee, and subsequently held a number of positions with Bayer in Germany and abroad before being appointed to the board of management as CFO in February 1997. Five years later—in April 2002—he became chairman of the board of management of the pharmaceuticals and chemicals group.

Milestones during Wenning’s tenure as CEO included the strategic realignment of the Bayer Group and the spin-off of the traditional chemicals business under the name Lanxess. The most important and strategically decisive step toward expanding the life science business was the acquisition of Schering, of Berlin, Germany, in 2006.