Björn Hermes

Biography

 Björn has over 12 years of experience across the globe as an executive in various commercial, strategic and financial positions at Lafarge and at Merck. At Lafarge, he managed a review of the German production sites and organizational restructuring, which improved financial health. At Merck he has held positions in Commercial & Subsidiary Controlling and Technical Operations during various transforming acquisitions and was CFO and member of the Board for the affiliates of Merck in the Middle-East region and for the Netherlands and Belgium. In the Middle-East, he managed establishing SAP R/3 and contract manufacturing activities, enabling the business to more than double organically in two years. In his recent role in the Netherlands and Belgium, he led a transformation of the business from Finance resulting in a growth against the market trend. Furthermore, Björn was managing the Holding activities of Merck in the Netherlands and supported its multi-billion dollar global participations during the acquisition of Sigma-Aldrich, and included mergers, valuations, taxation, and financing. Within the broad field of Finance, Björn’s has a strong business orientation through financial transparency and ownership, process development and pragmatic problem solving. Björn holds a Master (Diplom Kaufmann) degree in Economics and International Management from the Otto-von-Guericke University in Magdeburg. A native German speaker, Björn is fluent in English.

Research Interest

 Opyhamalogical research