FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lorenz Capalad
Lorenz.Capalad@CFOstudio.com
December 1, 2015
(732) 868-0000 x118
Berry Bier, CFO of Bayer,
Featured in the Q4 Issue of CFO Studio Magazine
SOMERSET, NJ – The chief financial officer of Bayer Corporation had been at his new job in Bayer’s Pittsbugh, PA, U.S. headquarters for just one year when he was tapped to lead a project to carve out one of Bayer’s three major product areas — MaterialScience. He was given two months to divide functions, transfer contracts with suppliers and customers, and start the registration process to spin off a group responsible for roughly $15 million in annual sales.
Bernd-Peter (Berry) Bier hit that first deadline as well as a second, Sept. 1, 2015, when MaterialScience, under the new name Covestro, began operating on its own. The cover story of CFO Studio magazine’s just-released Q4 issue details the reasons for the carve-out and decisions Bier made in accomplishing it. The article also describes Bier’s work designing and executing a strategy that relies on acquisitions, R&D partnerships, and the funding of promising new products, now that Bayer is solely a life-sciences company.
Bayer’s products include pharmaceuticals for humans and animals and crop protection products, seeds, and growth stimulants. Readers of CFO Studio learn how Bayer Healthcare, which has its North American headquarters in Whippany, NJ, funds R&D, and why, despite the company’s best-selling drugs for hypertension, cancer, and hemophilia, Bier believes the pharmaceuticals industry is a “risky business.”
CFO Studio magazine is published and funded by CFO Studio and underwritten by great promotional partners. Each issue contains business profiles and strategic advice for New Jersey– and New York–area CFOs.
About Bayer Corporation
Bayer is a global enterprise with core competencies in the Life Science fields of health care and agriculture. Its products and services are designed to benefit people and improve their quality of life. At the same time, the Group aims to create value through innovation, growth, and high earning power. Bayer is committed to the principles of sustainable development and to its social and ethical responsibilities as a corporate citizen. In fiscal 2014, the Group employed around 119,000 people and had sales of EUR 42.2 billion. For more information, go to www.bayer.us.
About CFO Studio
CFO Studio and CFO Studio magazine deploy the best of new and traditional media to promote finance executives as business and strategy thought-leaders. Andrew Zezas is the host of CFO Studio and the Publisher of CFO Studio magazine. The company’s second annual CFO Innovation Conference & Awards will be presented at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ on May 5, 2016.
Visit www.CFOstudio.com to watch interviews with New Jersey area CFOs, with new releases every Thursday morning at 10:00 AM EST!
To read stories that have appeared in CFO Studio magazine, or for subscriptions and advertising opportunities, visit www.CFOstudio.com.
To nominate a CFO for an innovation award, visit www.CFOstudio.com.