Marijn Dekkers

"Dr. Marijn Dekkers is one of Europe’s outstanding global business leaders. He was appointed Chairman of Unilever in 2016, after an extremely successful time as CEO of Bayer AG. Previously he served as CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. He is also Founder and Chairman of Novalis LifeSciences LLC, an investment and advisory firm for the Life Science industry.

At Bayer, from 2010-2016, Dekkers started a major transformation program by revamping its innovation capability and changing the culture from a large old fashioned German chemical company into a highly innovative and more nimble Life Science company. This led to a stream of successful new product introductions which catapulted Bayer, for the first time in its history, to the number one most valuable company in the DAX. Dekkers earned a reputation for being bold and received numerous awards and accolades, including “most innovative international CEO”, “Manager of the Year” and “Business Person of the Year”.

At Thermo Fisher Scientific, he implemented a complete corporate reorganisation. Then as CEO from 2002, he strengthened the company’s core businesses by driving an innovation model supplemented by a number of acquisitions. This allowed the company to be a full solution provider to its customers and become the leading supplier of analytical instrumentation and consumables to the Life Science industry. Under his leadership, the market value of the company increased tenfold.

After his retirement from Bayer, Dekkers joined Unilever as chairman in 2016. Unilever is a leading consumer goods company whose products are used daily by 2.5 billion people around the world. Dekkers is helping the Board of Directors to keep the focus on what local consumers want and ensuring Unilever’s tremendous product range remains relevant and meaningful in people’s lives."