Lanxess, a Germany-based leading specialty chemicals company, has announced that Frederique van Baarle will take over as head of the high performance materials business unit with effect from June 1, 2020, succeeding Michael Zobel. The business unit's portfolio mainly comprises high-performance plastics for the automotive and electronics industries. 

 

The Dutch native Baarle is currently heading the global procurement and logistics group function. Zobel will take over as head of the Lanxess subsidiary Saltigo on June 1, 2020.

 

"In Baarle we have been able to recruit an experienced and successful manager to head our high-performance plastics business. As a long-standing marketing and sales manager at high performance materials, she knows the business inside out," Hubert Fink, member of Lanxess' board of management, said in a press release.

 

Baarle began her professional career in the chemical industry at the Dutch company Royal DSM in the year 2000 after studying international marketing, obtaining an MBA and graduating at the French business school Insead. At DSM, she held a number of internal management roles. Baarle joined Lanxess in 2011 and assumed various management positions in sales and marketing in the high performance elastomers business unit (now Arlanxeo) and the high performance materials business unit. Since December 2018, Baarle has been heading the company's global purchasing department.