Peter Oakley (54), a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 1998 and responsible for Agricultural Products & Nutrition, Specialty Chemicals Research and BASF Plant Science, will leave the company at his own request to pursue a new business opportunity following the transformation of BASF Aktiengesellschaft into BASF SE.
Klaus Peter Löbbe (61), who has been a member of the Board of Executive Directors since 2002 and is responsible for North America and the Catalysts division as well as being Chairman and CEO of BASF Corporation, Florham Park, New Jersey, will retire from BASF for health reasons, effective July 31, 2007. Chief Financial Officer Kurt Bock will assume Löbbe's U.S.-based responsibilities in addition to his current duties.
Harald Schwager will succeed Voscherau. He is a chemist and has been Verbund Site Manager Ludwigshafen since February 2006. Schwager started work at BASF in 1988 in polypropylene catalyst research.
After positions in technical service for polypropylene, and marketing and sales for polyvinyl chloride (PVC), he became head of the Polyvinyl Chloride business unit headquartered in Brussels, Belgium, as well as managing director of the European companies of Solvin S.A. in Brussels. In 2003, he was appointed head of BASF's Inorganics division.